TABLE 14

Showing the Relation between Records in the First High School Year, and Records in Subsequent Years in High School and College (Smith)

High School University
Quintiles 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
First 100% 70% 67% 67% 52% 36% 43% 25%
Second 100% 54% 33% 29% 35% 33% 22% 8%
Third 100% 41% 37% 21% 35% 20% 22% 21%
Fourth 100% 29% 25% 21% 48% 28% 17% 25%
Fifth 100% 50% 59% 50% 45% 32% 39% 38%
Averages 100% 49% 44% 38% 43% 30% 29% 23%

Here again, if the subsequent distributions were on a chance basis with respect to the first year high school grades, there would tend to be but twenty per cent in each of the various quintiles. As a matter of fact, the percentages never fall so low as twenty per cent, although in the senior college year they approach very close to this figure.

It is to be noted that changes so small as from one quintile to the immediately adjacent one are not taken into account in this table. The figures show only those who were in precisely the same quintile all the way through. The indication is then that a student's performance in the first high school year is very significant of what his performance will be through the rest of the high school course, and also of significance with respect to what he will do in his university work. The significance of the early work, as has appeared in other studies also, becomes less and less the farther through the course one goes, so that in the senior year in college there is approximately a chance distribution with reference to the work of the first year high school.

Smith also presents his results in the form of coefficients of correlation between various rankings. The following are the most interesting in the present connection:

TABLE 15

Correlations (Smith)

H. S. Average and Univ. Freshman Average.48
H. S. Average and Univ. Sophomore Average.39
H. S. Average and Univ. Junior Average.47
H. S. Average and Univ. Senior Average.28
1st and 2nd Year High School.77
1st and 3rd Year High School.67
1st and 4th Year High School.66
University Freshman and Sophomore.73
University Freshman and Junior.61
University Freshman and Senior.45