Persistence
The goal is the credential, not a good day on one test. A GED® credential requires a passing score on each of four subject tests: Reasoning Through Language Arts, Mathematical Reasoning, Science, and Social Studies. The common passing score is 145 on each. A HiSET® credential is five subtests: Reading, Writing, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies. States set the combined bar. A common rule has been 8 on each subtest, 45 overall, and 2 on the essay. One pass does not finish the goal. Texas Education Agency, 2023.
Most adults who start do not finish. Persistence studies in adult literacy and GED programs find that many learners leave early. Comings, Parrella, and Soricone (1999) reported that only about 11 percent of adult learners in GED® programs attended continuously for a year. Later reviews cite about 100 hours of instruction as the point where a majority of adult education students show measurable progress, and some program studies find half of enrollees gone before 35 hours. The barrier is staying, not the score line on a single section.
Students who did finish often name goals as part of why they stayed. In Comings’ work, people who completed their objectives said setting goals helped them persist. A small math-class comparison found higher retention in a day class that used goal setting, 71 percent versus 45 percent. The evening classes did not differ. That is a classroom count, not a trial.
A later dissertation on GED® persistence named four supports that showed up together: a teacher who set goals and kept contact, the learner’s own determination, family support, and a job reason for finishing.
A named reason also shows up after the credential. Heller (2025), using about 102,000 GED® testers from 2014 to 2023, found that students who said educational advancement was their main reason for testing enrolled in college at higher rates than peers with similar scores. Among that group, more than half enrolled within a year, against about 27 percent of GED® graduates overall. Barely passing one subject test, compared with barely failing it, did not by itself raise college completion. The useful finding for class is the named goal, not the idea that one more point on one test changes a life. Heller, 2025.
Goal-setting research outside adult education says the same thing in plainer terms. Locke and Latham’s review found that a specific, challenging goal beats “do your best.” “Pass all four” is specific. “Work on math sometime” is not.
There is a limit on what the tests measure. Heckman and Rubinstein (2001) showed that GED® recipients match high school graduates on academic tests, then fall closer to dropouts on earnings, steady work, and college completion. Their reading is that a diploma also marks follow-through, and a one-day test does not. Passing every section is itself the follow-through the score report cannot see.
In class, write the credential as a checklist of tests. For GED®, four lines. For HiSET®, five. Mark a test passed only when the official score is in. Set a near goal under the far one: the next test, or the next skill on that test. Ask why in one sentence and write it on the page. Job, college, or a child watching are the reasons students in these studies actually named. Count hours and contacts, not only scores. A student who has passed one test and disappeared has not met the goal.
Which credential Circle one. GED® (four tests) HiSET® (five subtests).....see example below.
These findings come from persistence studies, a national GED® file, and goal-setting research. They are not a trial of a goal worksheet in a GED® or HiSET®class. A written goal does not replace instruction. It marks what “done” is, so a pass on one test is not mistaken for the credential.
References
Comings, J. P., Parrella, A., & Soricone, L. (1999). Persistence among adult basic education students in pre-GED classes (NCSALL Reports No. 12). National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy. https://www.ncsall.net/fileadmin/resources/research/report12.pdf
Ford, R. (2017). The improvement of persistence in adult learners in GED programs (Ed.D. dissertation). Wilmington University.
Heckman, J. J., & Rubinstein, Y. (2001). The importance of noncognitive skills: Lessons from the GED testing program. American Economic Review, 91(2), 145–149.
Heller, B. H. (2025). High school equivalency credentialing and post-secondary success: Pre-registered quasi-experimental evidence from the GED test (EdWorkingPaper No. 25-1240). https://edworkingpapers.com/ai25-1240
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705–717. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.57.9.705
Texas Education Agency. (2023). Test score requirements. https://tea.texas.gov/student-assessment/certificate-of-high-school-equivalency/test-score-requirements
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