What Is The Best Way To Determine A Student's Aptitude For The Science Profession?

The article "Do High School Science Competitions Predict Success?" (Linda Marsa, The Scientist, April 19, 1993, page 21) is excellent but misses a very important point: Precollege science competitions are not all the same. Some are based on written examinations, some on students' essays, and some on independent scientific research. With such differences, one can well ask whether the different categories of competitions predict entry into a field--or adult occupational success in that field-- equally well. There has not been, to my knowledge, any research aimed at answering this question. However, Harold A. Edgerton's 1973 study of Westinghouse Science Talent Search participants (Identifying High School Seniors Talented in Science, Washington, D.C., Science Service) is relevant. The study looked at that year's 300 recipients of honorable mentions, who had been selected on the basis of the quality of their research papers. The names of these 300 young people were checked against a list of 300 names selected from the total pool of Westinghouse entries on the basis of their high academic achievement (grades, SAT scores, and class rank). The study compared the two groups to see how many students were in both. There was only one-third overlap. Two-thirds of the students chosen on the basis of scientific research performance did not have high enough scores to be in the top 300 if academic achievement had been the criterion for selection. And two-thirds of those chosen on the basis of academic achievement failed to be among the 300 honorable mentions chosen on the basis of scientific performance. Not surprisingly, we see that different selection criteria tend to select different students. And so the question asked in the title of The Scientist's recent article might be rephrased as "Which High School Science Competitions Best Predict Success?" While there is no positive answer, a clue is offered in a 1985 paper by Leonard L. Baird ("Do grades and tests predict adult accomplishment?" Research in Higher Education, 23[1]:3). After reviewing a large number of studies on the relation of academic achievement to success, Baird concluded that, in general, the studies demonstrated low positive relationships between academic aptitude or grades and adult accomplishment, although he does note that "The closer the content of the measure of academic aptitude to the demands of the field, the stronger the relationship." If academic achievement does not accurately reflect the demands of scientific research, does it have any relevance? In 1981, educational psychologists Richard S. Mansfield and Thomas S. Busse commented on a threshold effect that has been suggested by some psychologists (The Psychology of Creativity and Discovery: Scientists and Their Work, Chicago, Nelson-Hall). Their findings imply that a threshold of academic achievement in a discipline is required for entry and effective functioning in that discipline. But beyond this threshold, additional academic achievement is not as important to success as other abilities, such as creativity or motivation. On the other hand, successful scientific performance presupposes a certain level of academic achievement, because successful research cannot be done without the necessary knowledge. This suggests that precollege science competitions based on written tests would predict ability to enter a particular field more effectively than practical achievement in that field. However, precollege science competitions based on performance in independent research would predict success in a field but not necessarily ability to enter that field. This is because it is possible to do good research but still not have high enough grades for admission to some colleges or universities, since most institutions consider academic achievement to be of far greater importance than scientific performance in determining acceptance. My opinion is that competitions based on research projects are better predictors of adult success in science than are competitions based on written tests, since the demands of a project more closely resemble the demands that professional scientists must meet. Written examinations, which establish exclusionary thresholds of academic potential that may preclude a student's entry into science, are most valuable in predicting who among them will not go on to become successful scientists. E.G. Sherburne, Jr. is former president of Science Service, which publishes Science News and administers two major precollege science competitions: the Westinghouse Science Talent Search and the International Science and Engineering Fair.

What Is The Best Way To Determine A Student's Aptitude For The Science Profession?

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