The Development Of The Academic Aptitude Test For Middle School Student (AATMS)

Objective: The Academic Aptitude Test for Middle School Student (AATMS) was developed to provide an objective measure of academic aptitude in order to use in educational counseling and clinical study for middle school students. The present study was conducted to construct the scale, analyze the items and examine the reliability , validityMethod: Based on hierarchical theory of intelligence, we formed the structure of AATMS through consulting experts and investigating 91 teachers with opened questionnaire on academic ability. The AATMS consisted of three sub-scales: language, math, and figure, including seven sub-tests. Those contents were regarded as very important for schooling, and called the general academic aptitude. Through testing in advance and screening the items, we formed AATMS-A and AATMS-B which were believed equal. The formal sample consisted of 1424 middle school students (AATMS-A were 713, AATMS-B were 711). Otherwise, 105 subjects did the AATMS re-testing. 99 subjects were tested by Changsha-Anshan Intelligence Test in Group (CAITG). 117 subjects'academic abilitys were rated by their teachers. 147 subjects'scores of terminal exam, two months later, were collected. Reliability testing included test-retest, Cronbach'sαcoefficients, and G coefficients. Validity testing included construct-related validity and criterion-related validity. The construct-related validity was examined by exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The criterion-related validity was examined by CAITG, teacher's rating, differentiation of group, and exam scores respectively.Results: 1. General result: The higher grade was, the higher raw score of AATMS was. 2. Item analysis: The difficulty of sub-tests ranged from 0.46 to 0.54, most sub-tests were over 0.5. The discrimination of 85% items was over 0.2. 3. Reliability: The Spearman test-retest correlations for each sub-scales ranged from...