Can Academic Potential Tests Predict Students’ Learning Outcomes?

Abstract

The Medical Education Study Program is a favorable department study program at Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta. Thus, the department increases the students' input standard to keep quality. There are various kinds of tests for selecting new students, including course tests, psychological tests (TPA and MMPI), health tests, and interview tests. Test types used to measure students' cognitive abilities at PSPD are final block exams and tutorial mini-quiz. Both types of tests use Multiple Choice Question (MCQ). The study aims to determine the correlation of academic potential tests with students' cognitive abilities illustrated through mini-quiz scores and block test scores. The research method used was an analytic observational research design using a cross-sectional approach. The sample of the research was 97 students. The analysis results showed that the total TPA results did not affect the mini-quiz and block examinations score (p>0.05). It can be concluded that there was no relationship between the values of the verbal, numerical, spatial, and overall value of the landfill with mini-quiz values. This study concluded that there was no relationship between the academic potential tests on students' mini-quiz scores in the Medical Education Study Program (PSPD). However, this TPA's results had a positive correlation on numerical sub-tests with the results of their block tests, even though the spatial and verbal sub-tests did not correlate.