Order of Subtests of the New Jersey College Basic Skills Placement Test

Abstract

The New Jersey College Basic Skills Placement Test was administered to two groups (Ns = 76) of incoming freshmen students. One group was administered the test in the standardized sequence: Essay, Reading Comprehension, Sentence Sense, Computation, Elementary Algebra, and the other in the following order: Essay, Computation, Elementary Algebra, Reading Comprehension, Sentence Sense. Those given Elementary Algebra earlier in the sequence had significantly higher raw scores and significantly fewer unanswered items, but there were no significant differences on either measure between groups on any other subtest. It was concluded that the reordering had no detrimental effects on the subscores but a significantly positive effect on scores in Elementary Algebra.