| Abstract: | If statewide test norms are useful in student counseling, state testing programs could provide predictions for individual students as a service to local schools. Since the choice of a high school curriculum is a major problem on which youth seeks guidance, the predictive validity of a statewide test battery, using state norms, is explored with curriculum choice as the criterion, and is compared with the validity of the same tests for the same criterion, but using local norms. The separation in state norms of career-goals groups and of the sexes is also explored. Results achieved are positive enough to encourage widespread and energetic application of the methods by state testing officers, and to imply their responsibility to make classification probabilities available to their customers. |
