Accuracy of students' reported honor point averages

Abstract

203 seniors in the Institute of Technology at the University of Minnesota were given an exploratory form of an engineering analogies test. Each of them was asked, at that time to indicate, to the best of his ability, his honor point average based on all the courses he had taken as an undergraduate. Implications were that the honor point averages were needed only for purposes of test validation, and the recordings were consequently free from any expectation of external reward or punishment. True honor point averages were subsequently obtained and compared with the students' estimates. The Pearson correlation coefficient between these two measures is .94. The greatest amount of inaccuracy in reporting was found with students whose averages were below 1.00. They tended to report higher averages than they actually had. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)