Teachers' ratings vs standardized tests: An empirical investigation of agreement between two indices of achievement

Abstract

The degree of correlation between teachers' ratings of vocabulary, comprehension, mathematics, and verbal intelligence with scores from the Progressive Achievement Tests (PAT) plus the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) was assessed with 120 boys and 110 girls aged 8.6 to 10.5 years in three southeastern suburban state schools in Melbourne. Teachers' ratings of students' general attitude also were collected. While results indicated that significant correlations did exist between data from the two sets of measures, these accounted for only small amounts of the total variance, suggesting that two almost discrete domains of information were being tapped. The need for reconciliation between these two domains is discussed and the presence of sex bias in teachers' ratings is raised for further study.