868 vIII. EMERGING  ISSuES AND  NEW  DIRECTIONS
of control. Flinn et al. (2019) built on this re -
search, use the same dataset, and add wage 
bargaining, which helps explain the gender 
wage gap. They showed that heterogeneity 
in endowments of noncognitive skills and in 
their valuations on the labor market largely 
account for the much discussed disparity. 
Specifically, women tend to score higher on 
agreeableness than men and are penalized 
for it in the wage bargaining process. Fur -
thermore, men are compensated more highly 
for conscientiousness, which is an important 
contributor to productivity.
Evidence from the GED Testing Program
Studies of the GED testing program provide 
additional causal evidence on the effect of 
noncognitive skills on life-  relevant out -
comes. The GED is a standardized achieve -
ment test that serves as an alternative to a 
high school diploma. High school dropouts 
can take the 7.5-hour GED exam to certify 
that they have the “general knowledge” of 
a high school graduate. The test was widely 
used but is now in decline. The GED testing 
program produced as many as 12% of high 
school certificates issued each year in the 
United States. The GED program provides 
insight into the effects of personality skills 
on outcomes. GED recipients have the same 
cognitive skill as high school graduates but 
differ in their noncognitive skills (see Heck -
man, Humphries, & Kautz, 2014).Table 42.1  displays the “validity” of the 
GED test as analyzed by psychometricians. 
It gives correlations between GED scores 
and other achievement test scores. GED test 
scores are strongly correlated with scores on 
other standardized achievement tests. The 
correlations range from 0.61 with the Gener -
al Aptitude Test Battery (GATB) to 0.88 with 
the Iowa Test of Educational Development, 
the progenitor of the GED. By the standards 
of psychometrics, the GED test is “valid.”
By psychometric standards, GED recipi -
ents have higher skills than other dropouts. 
Figures 42.6a and 42.6b shows the distri -
butions of a factor extracted from the com -
ponents of the Armed Services Vocational 
Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) for high school 
dropouts, GED recipients, and high school 
graduates.68 The sample excludes people 
who attend postsecondary education. The 
distribution of the scores of GED recipients 
is much more like that of high school gradu -
ates than that of high school dropouts.
If they have the same cognitive ability as 
high school graduates, then why do they 
drop out of high school? Success in school 
requires other skills. On a variety of other 
dimensions, GED recipients behave much 
more like other dropouts. Figure 42.7 shows 
measures of early adolescent drug use, crime, 
sex, and violence extracted from three data 
sources.69 Male high school graduates per -
form better on all measures than high school 
dropouts or GED recipients. GED recipients 
TABLE 42.1.  Validities of GED Test
Test Correlation Source(s)
Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) .75–.79aMeans & Laurence (1984)
Iowa Test of Educational Development .88aMeans & Laurence (1984)
American College Test (ACT) .80aMeans & Laurence (1984)
Adult Performance Level (APL) Survey .81aMeans & Laurence (1984)
New York’s Degrees of Reading Power (DRP) Test .77aMeans & Laurence (1984)
Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE) .66–.68aMeans & Laurence (1984)
General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB) .61–.67a Means & Laurence (1984)
National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) factor .78b Baldwin (1995)
aUses mean GED subtest scores.
bUses a general GED factor.