THE MEASUREMENT OF ACADEMIC INTERESTS

This study of predictive validities of academic interest measures is based on a follow‐up through grade 12 and one year after high school graduation of students who had been tested in grade 11. The report focuses on four major topics: the prediction of marks in grades 12 and 13, with special attention to differential prediction; the prediction of interests in grades 12 and 13, again emphasizing the contribution of academic interest measures to differential prediction; the structure of abilities, interests, and values; the relationships between the independent variables and occupational criteria for the subsample that did not continue in an educational institution during the year after graduation from high school. Some incidental attention is also given to interest score profiles for various major‐field and occupational groups. Another incidental analysis shows the proportions (classified by sex, socioeconomic status, and ability) of the students followed up after high school graduation who attended four‐year or two‐year colleges or did not go to college. To assess the distinctive contribution to prediction made by the Academic Interest Measures (AIM), a consistent statistical procedure has been followed. Multiple correlations are given in a progression that always starts with Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test scores, Verbal and Mathematical (PSAT‐V and PSAT‐M), as predictors; then variables from AIM and other predictors are added successively. A major obligation is undertaken to determine the extent to which AIM increases predictive validities when ability scores, and sometimes previous marks, are already available. Finally, the contribution of AIM is compared with that of a simpler rating by students of their own interests in the fields represented by AIM scales.