A meta-analysis of the relationship between Wonderlic test scores and school success

Abstract

This meta-analysis examined the validity of an alternative to traditional assessments called the Wonderlic which is a brief measure of general mental ability. Our results showed significant, positive correlations between Wonderlic scores and academic performance in general ( r̅ = .26), between Wonderlic scores and undergraduate GPA in particular ( r̅ = .27, $\overline{\rho }$ = .33), and between Wonderlic scores and retention ( r̅ =.09, $\overline{\rho }$ = .12). We also identified several significant moderators of the relationship between Wonderlic scores and relevant outcomes (e.g., test publisher reported coefficients were larger than those reported by other sources). Subgroup differences in test scores were in the same range as other post-secondary admissions assessments (e.g., ACT and SAT scores). Overall, the Wonderlic has similar levels of subgroup differences and is less strongly related to GPA than traditional assessments but still retains useful levels of predictiveness and is a shorter, less expensive assessment that requires less preparation than the ACT or SAT.

Keywords:

• Wonderlic
• meta-analysis
• admissions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 There are several versions of the Wonderlic including the Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT) and the Scholastic Level Exam (SLE). According to the publisher’s manual: “The WPT is primarily used by business and governmental organizations to evaluate job applicants for employment and occupational training. The SLE is primarily used by postsecondary colleges and schools to evaluate student applicants and to provide a counseling aid in curriculum choices. All forms of both tests are designed to be equivalent and each form is expected to provide essentially the same score for applicants of the same ability” (Wonderlic, 1992, p. 4). Shortened versions of the Wonderlic (WPT-Q or SLE-Q) have timing reduced to eight minutes and items reduced to 30. A regression equation is used to adjust scores to the 50-point scale used in the full measure. In the present meta-analysis, only six of the 91 validity coefficients used one of the short forms which precluded reliable separate analyses.

2 Note that meta-regression cannot be performed when using the artifact distribution method.

3 We did however extract a distribution of Wonderlic reliabilities from the literature which is required to correct for indirect range restriction using the Case IV method (see Caretta & Ree, 2022). The mean and variance of this distribution was 0.85 and 0.004, respectively.

4 We used the average of the two standard deviations as the unrestricted population standard deviation because use of the high school graduate standard deviation would lead to an overcorrection and use of the college graduate standard deviation would lead to an undercorrection.

5 We only included cases with undergraduate GPA (k = 70) and not other forms of academic performance such as exam or course grades or at the graduate level for these analyses because the artifact distribution was based on undergraduate GPA.

6 Note that we were careful to not double-count results from unpublished work with that which had subsequently been published. In cases where dissertation and thesis work had been published, we reported the published results but not the unpublished results.