The relationships between performance on the Texas Academic Skills Program Test, grade point average, and performance on the Examination for Certification of Educators in Texas

The purpose of this study was to describe the strength and direction of the relationship between the performance in subject area specialization courses, the reading, mathematics, and writing achievement as measured by the Texas Academic Skills Program (TASP) Test of elementary school teacher education students and the teacher competency of those students as measured by the Examination for Certification of Educators in Texas (ExCET) Elementary Comprehensive Examination.; The sample was a convenience sample consisting of 280 elementary education students who attended the University of Houston from August 1998 to December 2000. Data were collected from official university records. These data were analyzed using the following analyses: (1) bivariate analyses using the Pearson product-moment correlation technique; (2) multivariate analysis using multiple linear regression; and (3) multivariate analysis using stepwise multiple regression to determine which predictor variable or combination of variables yields the best prediction of the criterion variable. In these analyses, the predictor variables were GPA, and reading, mathematics, and writing achievement as measured by the TASP. The criterion variable was teacher competency as measured by the ExCET Elementary Comprehensive. The ninety-five percent confidence level (p < .05) was used as the criterion level for determining statistical significance.; The bi-variate analyses that used the Pearson product-moment correlation technique to estimate the relationships between the predictor variables and the criterion variable yielded: (1) no statistically significant positive relationship for GPA (r = +.15, p = .146); (2) statistically significant positive relationships for reading achievement (r = +.49, p < .001), for mathematics achievement (r = +.39, p < .001), and for writing achievement (r = +.39, p < .001). However, the predictor variables for which a statistically significant relationship was obtained, were weak predictors that accounted for little of the variance in the criterion variable—teacher competency.; The multivariate analyses that used stepwise multiple regression yielded a statistically significant relationship between the predictor variables in combination and the criterion variable (R = .57, R2 = .32, F ratio of 33.82). Since, 32% of the variance of the criterion variable was accounted for by the combination of predictor variables this is viewed as a weak relationship.