Validity and Reliability of the Cultural Literacy Test

Hirsch in 1987 advanced the thesis that poor readers do not know much about our cultural background and consequently read poorly. He developed a 115-item test to measure this construct. The purpose of the present study was to assess the reliability and validity of Hirsch's Cultural Literacy Test with 42 Caucasian, 63 African-American, and 22 Hispanic students of a community college. Scores on the Cultural Literacy Test correlated .28 with GPA, grade in freshman English .27, and Texas Academic Skills Program Reading .33, Mathematics .30, and Writing .40. Regular English students scored significantly higher than Developmental English students. Students who scored low on cultural literacy did poorly in freshman English.