An evaluation of the educational testing service major field achievement test in business

Increasingly, the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business and other accrediting bodies have been requiring evidence that universities are fulfilling their missions. One approach involves the use of professionally developed, standardized achievement tests such as the Educational Testing Service (ETS) Major Achievement Field Test in Business (MFAT-B). We studied MFAT-B performance for its relationship to GPA and to measures of general intellect to determine if the pattern of associations made sense, given that the test is intended to reflect business knowledge. As expected, a significant, moderately large correlation was observed involving Business Core GPA and MFAT-B performance, but contrary to expectations, other GPA's and measures of intellectual aptitude predicted the test scores equally well. Finally, no gender-based differences in MFAT-B performance were evident, but significant improvements in the test scores were found as a function of whether extra course credit was offered as an incentive.