The Dental Hygiene Aptitude Tests and the American College Testing Program Tests as Predictors of Scores on the National Board Dental Hygiene Examination

Abstract

Seventy-seven recent (1978 to 1981) graduates of the Dental Hygiene Program of Lima Technical College (Ohio) took the National Board Dental Hygiene Examination (NBDHE). These NBDHE scores served as the criterion variable in an attempt to compare the predictive validity of the Dental Hygiene Aptitude Tests (DHAT) and the tests of the ACT Assessment Program. The DHAT tests, singly and collectively, were more predictive of the Board scores than were the ACT Assessment tests. Two of the DHAT tests, the DHAT-Science and DHAT-Verbal tests, which both correlated moderately with the NBDHE score (r = .37) and with one another (r = .28), combined to produce the highest multiple-correlation with NBDHE scores (R = .46). The Composite score from the ACT Assessment Program and the Science test of the ACT Assessment Program produced correlations of .26 and .28, respectively, with NBDHE scores.