THE RELATIONSHIP OF METROPOLITAN READINESS TESTS SCORES TO METROPOLITAN ACHIEVEMENT TESTS SCORES THROUGH GRADE FIVE IN AN IOWA SCHOOL DISTRICT

Abstract

Because of the increased emphasis on early childhood education in the state of Iowa, a need arose to assess the ability of the Metropolitan Readiness Tests to indicate future reading achievement. To this end, the Metropolitan Readiness Tests (MRT) scores of 351 students in an Iowa school district were correlated with their Metropolitan Achievement Tests (MAT) scores at grades one, three, and five. These correlations were further compared to the publisher's (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Inc.) nationally-normed correlation of.70 between MRT scores and first grade MAT scores.^ A moderately strong degree of correlation (.48-.52) was found between the MRT scores and the MAT scores at all grade levels. However, all the correlations were significantly below the.70 found by the publisher. No significant differences were found between correlations for boys and correlations for girls at any grade level.^ Additional findings showed that the Iowa district had a small percentage (10) of low-scoring students (22 percentile or below) on the kindergarten MRT. Of these low-scoring students, only about one-third continued to score in the low range by fifth grade.^ The movement among the high-scoring students (77 percentile or above) was also examined. While 36 percent of the kindergarteners in this study scored in the high range, only about half of these students maintained their superior test scores through fifth grade.^ Finally, data were examined to determine if the childrens' first grade intelligence test scores would have been a better indicator of future achievement than the MRT. It was found that, while the Otis Lennon School Abilities Index had moderately strong correlations (.46-.50) to the MAT scores at the three grade levels, the correlations of the MRT to the MAT scores were consistently slightly higher (.48-.52). ^