Abstract
Recent years, merits and usefulness of new types of comprehensive examinations, which evaluate examinee’s performance in problem solving and task handling, aptitude for higher education in a specific academic courses etc., have been discussed in regard to the diversification of selection method for university admission. A comprehensive test aims to measure non-curriculum-based abilities such as logical thinking ability, reading comprehension, expressiveness and related abilities, whereas a subject test aims to measure academic achievement. In order to verify the validity of non-curriculum-based ability test (NCBAT) we investigated the relationship between NCBAT scores and academic achievement, the latter evaluated by the subject tests and self-evaluation ratings, using factor analysis based with the experimental data obtained from university students. In this paper we demonstrate the existence of a distinctive factor differentiating the non-curriculum-based ability from the subject-based ability, and report the correlations between this factor and information comprehension, logical thinking, and expressive abilities which underlie problem solving and task handling abilities. These results have high reproducibility and can be taken as evidence of the construct validity of the NCBAT.
