Going Off the Record

The Graduate Record Exam - the GRE - is widely used in graduate school admissions. In recent years however, a number of graduate programs, including a few in psychology, have stopped requiring it in a movement that has been dubbed "GRExit." In this episode we discuss the arguments around using the GRE in graduate admissions. What is the evidence for and against its validity? For and against the presence of bias against various groups? How much do we know about validity and bias in the other materials routinely considered in admission, like grades, undergraduate institution, research experience, and letters of recommendation? Are arguments over the GRE just a proxy for larger and more difficult arguments about the purpose and social value of graduate education? And for programs that are dropping the GRE, what are they doing instead, and how will we know what the effects of that are? Plus: we answer a letter about giving authorship to undergrads who made minimal contributions to a project in order to help them get into grad school. 

Links:

• CRediT - Contributor Roles Taxonomy
• A comprehensive meta-analysis of the predictive validity of the graduate record examinations: Implications for graduate student selection and performance, by Kuncel, Hezlett, and Ones (2001)
• Standardized tests predict graduate students' success, by Kuncel and Hezlett (2007)
• Beyond the GRE: Rethinking Admissions Procedures and GRE Scores Are Poor Predictors

The Black Goat is hosted by Sanjay Srivastava, Alexa Tullett, and Simine Vazire. Find us on the web at www.theblackgoatpodcast.com, on Twitter at @blackgoatpod, on Facebook at facebook.com/blackgoatpod/, and on instagram at @blackgoatpod. You can email us at letters@theblackgoatpodcast.com. You can subscribe to us on iTunes or Stitcher.

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This is episode 73. It was recorded on January 6, 2020.