Reviews research on whether students should change answers or let first answers stand on objective tests. Finds that the odds are over two to one that a student's score will be raised, rather than lowered, if he or she changes answers. Offers three suggestions for improving students' test-taking strategies. (SR)

Educators are currently exploring the expanded use of a variety of new assessment tools in the classroom in response to pressures to enhance student learning. The present study examined quick writes as a tool in the context of third-grade classroom assessment. Third-grade teachers administered the same brief writing probe before and after students…

Web-based homework (WBH) Technology can simplify the creation and grading of assignments as well as provide a feasible platform for assessment testing, but its effect on student learning in business statistics is unknown. This is particularly true of the latest software development of Web-based tutoring agents that dynamically evaluate individual…

Supports the validity of the PMT as a measure of achievement motivation as tested with military school cadets. (Author/DEP)

Study supported in part by Grant MH-05518 from the National Institute of Mental Health, U.S. Public Health Service.

INVESTIGATION IS CONTINUED INTO VARIOUS EFFECTS OF NON-INDEPENDENT ERROR INTRODUCED INTO MULTIPLE-CHOICE TEST SCORES AS A RESULT OF CHANCE GUESSING SUCCESS. A MODEL IS DEVELOPED IN WHICH THE CONCEPT OF THEORETICAL COMPONENTS OF SCORES IS NOT INTRODUCED AND IN WHICH, THEREFORE, NO ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING ANY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SUCH COMPONENTS NEED…

Eighteen studies of the effects of changing initial answers to objective test items are reviewed. While students throughout the total test score range tended to gain more points than they lost, higher scoring students gain more than did lower scoring students. Suggestions for further research are made. (Author/JKS)

The true-false testing method evaluated in a perception and cognition course provided a quick and thorough means of testing structural knowledge, i.e., the knowledge of how concepts within a domain are interrelated in a semantic network of ideas. It also caused students to think about relationships among concepts as they studied. (RM)

Some students study, and some learn, in preparation for exams; to increase their number, author (a high school teacher) presents a restructured exam program." (SP)

The Test Analysis Program (TAP) is a comprehensive, flexible computer system designed to score and to analyze objective educational tests. The goals of the designers were to construct a program which would be user-oriented, flexible, and clear in structure and in output. (Author/JKS)

The discrimination of the onset of joint control is an important interpretive tool in explaining matching behavior and other complex phenomena, but the difficulty of getting experimental control of all relevant variables stands in the way of a definitive experiment. The studies in the present issue of "The Analysis of Verbal Behavior" illustrate…

This study evaluates the reliability of self-assessment as a measure of computer competence. This evaluation is carried out in response to recent research which has employed self-reported ratings as the sole indicator of students' computer competence. To evaluate the reliability of self-assessed computer competence, the scores achieved by students…

Counselors and teachers are sometimes asked for advice concerning the advisability of changing a response made to an objective test item. This article examines the current beliefs of students, the advice given in the 'how to' literature, and the effects of changed responses. (Author)

Argues that objective tests in secondary English will lead to a packaged humanity in which individuals are essentially similar. (Author/RB)