Differences in Mental Ability and Academic Achievement of Two Groups of High School Graduates

Abstract

This study investigated the differences between the means and the standard deviations in mental ability and academic achievement of two groups of high school students who were differentiated on their indicated aspirations for higher education. The subjects were 636 randomly selected 1961 graduates from nine public, comprehensive high schools in Portland, Oregon.

The hypothesis and sub-hypotheses were stated in the null form. Tests of significance at the .01 level of confidence were determined by utilizing the t tests.

The findings indicated that there were high significant differences between the means of the two groups for all characteristics except the GPA's, and no significant differences between the variability of the scores except in the Stanford Reading Scores.