Recall and recognition test expectancy effects on low and high achieving grade 9 and 10 adolescents
Date
1985
Authors
Goldsmith, Susan Marie
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Abstract
Researchers have found that subjects who expect and receive a recall test perform significantly better than subjects who expect a recognition test and receive an unexpected recall test. This is called the recall test expectancy superiority (TES) effect. Other investigators have found that students of different achievement levels handle organizational, memory, study, and problem-solving tasks quite differently. An experimental study was described in which 36 high achievers and 36 low achievers, at the Grade 9 and 10 level, were led to expect a certain type of test (recall or recognition) for two study-test sessions. Each study-test session required the students to study a one-page story for seven minutes and answer a fifteen-item quiz for five minutes. During the third study-test session, half of the high achievers and half of the low achievers received the opposite type of test from what they expected. The presented researcher intended to discover if an unexpected switch to a completion test (when a multiple choice test was expected) had a different effect on the performance of low and high achievers than an unexpected switch to a multiple choice test when a completion test was expected. Of interest was whether or not high and low achieving students performed differently when expecting completion and multiple choice tests. The results showed that no significant differences were found between the high and low achievers when either group expected one type of test and received the opposite in Session 3. Neither group demonstrated the recall TES effect. Either the high and low achievers did not prepare differently for the different types of tests, or any shifts in their study habits made no difference to their recall performance.
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UN SDG 4: Quality Education