The CPT Reading Comprehension Test: A Validity Study

The present article reports and discusses the results of an ongoing research effort to empirically establish the cutoff points for the CPT Reading Comprehension Test (CPT-R) (CEEB, 1990) at a 2-year community college. The establishment of valid placement test standards must conform to accepted and established psychometric practices in order to serve as indices of academic preparedness for exemption from remedial coursework and entry into traditional academic programs of study. Thus, in addition to the selection of an assessment instrument with empirically substantiated construct validity, test users must empirically establish the criterion-related validity of the decision points (cutoffs) on a placement test's score distribution.