On the Convergent and Discriminant Validity of the National Admission Test for Law Schools (NATLaS)

Abstract

We investigated the relationship between scores from the National Admission Test for Law Schools (NATLaS) and several tests measuring various abilities or traits in order to clarify what the NATLaS measures. Our results show that NATLaS scores well correlate with those from a basic logical thinking and a vocabulary test while there are low correlations between NATLaS scores and those from a questionnaire about attitudes toward critical thinking. The “Reasoning and analytical abilities” part of NATLaS correlates more strongly with the skills tested in the logical thinking test, and the “Reading comprehension and expressiveness” part correlates more strongly with the test of vocabulary. These results suggest that each part of NATLaS accurately measures examinee’s abilities as intended. Furthermore, a follow-up using results from another year’s NATLaS shows that these results are reasonably consistent.