Table 4 Research evidence on validity of standardized tests of academic abilities

GRE General

First-year graduate GPA

(Bridgeman et al., 2009; Burmeister et al., 2014; Moneta-Koehler et al., 2017)

Time to graduate degree

No relationship (Hall et al., 2017; Mendoza-Sanchez et al., 2022; Moneta-Koehler et al., 2017; Petersen et al., 2018; Sealy et al., 2019)

Positive relationship: the higher the GRE scores, the longer the time (Howell et al., 2014; Lorden et al., 2011)

Graduate degree completion

(Cox et al., 2009; Lorden et al., 2011; Lott et al., 2009; Mendoza-Sanchez et al., 2022; Miller et al., 2019; Moneta-Koehler et al., 2017; Petersen et al., 2018)

When a relative GRE score is considered instead of its absolute score (i.e., compared to student’s peers in a program), one study has found GRE General to be efficient in distinguishing students with lower and higher odd of attrition in one of the studies (Lott et al. 2009)

GGPA

(Burton & Wang, 2005; Howell et al., 2014; Klieger et al., 2014; Moneta-Koehler et al., 2017; Zimmermann et al., 2017a, 2017b)

GGPA

No relationship of GRE-Q and GRE-V to the GGPA in Physics (Verostek et al., 2021)

Performance on core program courses

The findings are ambiguous: one study found that the correlation is positive (Burmeister et al., 2014), another one showed that while the GRE General contribution existed in univariate analysis, it did not hold in the adjusted model (Park et al., 2018). There is another study showing that only GRE-V, but not GRE-Q was positively related to a core course performance (Willcockson et al., 2009)

Research productivity defined as number of publications

(Hall et al., 2017; Moneta-Koehler et al., 2017; Sealy et al., 2019)

One study is an exception, where GRE-Q was the only and very weak predictor of number of publications, explaining 5% of variance in the outcome (Howell et al., 2014)

Faculty ratings

(Burmeister et al., 2014; Burton & Wang, 2005; Howell et al., 2014; Moneta-Koehler et al., 2017)

An exception is a study that found the negative relationship between the GRE General and faculty rankings: better ranked PhD students tended to have lower GRE scores from their faculty mentors (Sealy et al., 2019). Though the authors state that they had a wide span of the GRE scores in their data, the sample size in this study was extremely low: 28 students, and part of the analysis was conducted on the lower and upper quartiles of the GRE scores, lowering the sample size even more

Qualifying exam

No relationship (Moneta-Koehler et al., 2017)

Positive relationship (Burmeister et al., 2014)

Conference presentations

(Moneta-Koehler et al., 2017)

Rate of progress

GRE-Q is a weak predictor of rate of progress (Zimmermann et al., 2017a, 2017b)

Obtaining grants, fellowships, or awards

(Moneta-Koehler et al., 2017; Sealy et al., 2019)

Thesis performance

No relationship (Zimmermann et al., 2017a, 2017b)

Graduate Record Examinations Subject (Physics)

Graduate GPA

(Verostek et al., 2021)

Faculty ratings

(Burmeister et al., 2014)

Graduate degree completion

(Miller et al., 2019)

The study of Miller et al. (2019) was heavily criticized for several issues in research design and statistical approach (Weissman, 2020), thus suggesting that the finding must be regarded with a lot of caution

Other standardized tests (EXANI-III in Mexico)

Graduate degree completion

(Álvarez-Montero et al., 2014)