Africa represents a region with highly expected growth in population, in education, and in the economy in the coming years. As African students and organizations have explored opportunities to become more global in their approach, they have often looked internationally for educational or business experiences. For many, this type of opportunity may be out of reach. More localized solutions could allow for opportunities for more individuals while providing mobility within the region.

Schools within Africa expressed a desire for a common test for admission to graduate business programs which could be used across the continent. The presentation will describe the process used to determine whether an existing admission test, currently used only in India, could be adapted for this purpose. Among the steps described will be defining the constructs to be measured, interacting with faculty, students, and administrators, and designing and conducting a pilot test.

The pilot test was conducted in the fall of 2015, at eight schools in six countries in Africa. More than 130 students completed pilot test forms. Preliminary results showed differences in relative difficulty of items, with some easier and some harder than the original statistics would suggest. Additionally, the construct representation of the items appeared to be questionable, as the factor analyses either showed multiple disparate factors, or failed to converge. However, there appeared to be no discernable differences in performance by groups such as gender, native language, or undergraduate major.

There are a number of difficulties inherent in attempting to adapt a test for a different region. In Africa, the multitude of languages, cultures, and educational backgrounds across countries make designing any common measure problematic. The presentation will explore possible reasons why the piloted measure was not successful and will describe next steps to try and meet the business schools' needs.