Design and Validation of the College Readiness Test (CRT) for Filipino K to 12 Graduates

Abstract

Designing and validating a college readiness test addresses the absence of standardized Philippine-based College Readiness Test (CRT) congruent with the College Readiness Standards (CRS) set by the Philippine Commission on Higher Education (CHED). It also resolves the varied and arbitrary indices used by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to measure the preparedness of K to 12 Filipino graduates to enter college. In this regard, this study establishes the validity and reliability of the CRT to measure the combination of knowledge, skills, and reflective thinking necessary for the K to 12 graduates to be admitted and to succeed without remediation in the General Education courses in HEIs. Using multi-stage sampling in a select province of the Philippines and with due consideration of the district, type of school, and academic tracks offered in senior high school, the study has generated that the 200-item CRT has desirable difficulty index (65.64), reasonably good discrimination index (0.22), and large functioning distractors (68.91% distractor efficiency). Notably, there is a significant positive relationship between discrimination and difficulty indices as well as the distractor efficiency and difficulty index of the CRT items. Also, the CRT is reliable as it possesses inter-item consistency (r=0.796). Thus, it is a valid and reliable instrument to measure the college readiness of Filipino K to 12 graduates with its features of being contextualized, gender-fair, and criterion-referenced.