Arab Educational Information Network

This study aims at exploring female students’ perceptions of the Standardized Aptitude Test (SAT) which is a general achievement test that is combined with the high school and General Achievement Test (GPA) to determine university acceptance. For the purpose of this study, the researchers designed a questionnaire that consists of four themes. In order to test the reliability and validity of the questionnaire it was administered to a random sample of 30 female students at the University of Dammam. In 2012 the questionnaire was administered to 679 female students, which is the sample size, in five programs: College of Education, College of Applied Sciences and Community Services, College of Science, engineering track and health track. The study results indicated that students’ perceptions towards the SAT were neutral overall. The perceptions were ranked in descending order as follows: perceptions towards the test questions, perceptions towards the SAT test as a standard required to enter the university and perceptions towards the level of preparedness for writing the SAT. The analysis showed a statistically significant difference at a level of (0.05) between the Perceptions of Students at the University of Dammam Towards General Aptitude Tests Dr. Al Jawhara Ibrahim Bubshait College of Education University of Dammam abubshait@hotmail.com Dr. Amani kalaf Al-Ghamdi College of Education University of Dammam amani.k.hamdan@gmail.com Key words: SAT, the National Center for Assessment and Evaluation, assessment and evaluation, University of Dammam Research Abstract 18 The Saudi Journal of Higher Education - Issue No.13 - May 2015 means of students’ perceptions towards the SAT in terms of their level of preparedness for taking the SAT, which is relevant to the type of high school program (science stream, arts stream) for the advantage of students majoring in arts Furthermore, there was statistical significance at a level of (0.05) between the means of students’ perceptions towards the SAT depending on the program (College of Education, College of Applied Sciences and Community Services, College of Science, engineering track and health track) for the advantage of college of science students for the dimension of SAT as a standard to enter university, the preparedness to enter SAT, the overall perception of SAT). (Published Abstract)