When given a multiple-choice test over unfamiliar material, students may score significantly above chance levels. This performance may be explained by prior knowledge of the material or by “test-wiseness,” determining the correct answer by using cues present in the test. Participants answered questions from an introductory psychology test-bank in two formats: a question stem with a single alternative and a traditional four alternative multiple-choice, reporting what sources of information they used to answer each question. For the single-alternative condition, participants had an accuracy of 42.2%, 17.2% higher than the base chance of 25%, with an average accuracy of 40.75% for the multiple-choice condition. Participants who stated they had previously learnt the material showed no significant difference in accuracy than those who stated they had guessed. These findings suggest that tests may have inflated scores which reflect test-wiseness and prior knowledge more than formal learning of the test materials.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the Test-Taking Strategy would improve performance on math curriculum-based assessments of students with disabilities, and if students reported an increased sense of math self-efficacy as a result of learning the Test-Taking Strategy. The Test-Taking Strategy uses mnemonics to teach strategies to help students successfully navigate through assessments. This study used an experimental, single-subject, multiple-probe, multiple base-line design (Horner & Baer, 1978). The design featured multiple participants, and followed the design features of quantitative research (Horner & Baer, 1978, McMillan, 2004, & Mitchell & Jolley, 2004). The Test-Taking Strategy did result in improved performance on CBA (math quizzes) for some of the students in this study. However, some students did not increase performance on math CBA (math quizzes). Findings also indicated most students did not report an increased sense of math efficacy. Results of this study and the impact of these findings are discussed.

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To investigate the efficacy of a cognitive approach applied to problems of motivation, anxiety, and test-wiseness in a group test situation, programmed texts were used to Condition a repertoire of verbal responses relevant to each of these problems. Five sixth grade classes composed of 118 Students total were administered Otis-Lennon Mental Ability Tests in a pretest-posttest design. For the five groups, ANCOVA demonstrated a significant effect on raw scores, but not on IQ. Significant IQ and raw score gains were found for the combination group over the control group. Due to treatment lower IQ level students of the combination group made greater raw score gains than upper IQ level students.

Black middle school students in the United States perform poorly on standardized reading achievement tests in comparison to other racial and ethnic groups. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a vocabulary-focused test preparation program for underachieving Black middle school students. Thorndike's concept of test-wiseness, a test-taking capacity, provided the theoretical foundation for the study. Research questions investigated the difference in reading test scores on the Discovery Education Assessment of underachieving Black middle school students who participated in a key vocabulary test preparation program and those who did not. An intact-group comparison was used in which the research site, a large urban middle school in Tennessee, was matched with a similar middle school. Teachers at the research site were trained on a test preparation strategy meant to familiarize students with key vocabulary terms related to test items. Participants were Black students in Grades 6, 7, and 8, who were enrolled in Title 1 supplementary reading instruction and scored below proficiency, with 405 students in the treatment group and 249 students in the control group. The post-intervention reading test scores on the Discovery Education Assessment were compared between the groups, with a baseline test score used as the covariate. The adjusted mean scores for both 6th and 7th grade students were significantly greater for the intervention group (p = .018 and p = .062 respectively), whereas there was no significant difference in test scores for 8th grade students (p = .246). Implications for positive social change include providing research-based findings to the study site that support the vocabulary-focused test preparation program to improve the reading achievement of Black middle school students.

This report consists of a compilation of a number of studies, which all of them have dealt with the effects of practice and instruction upon a person's test results. A literature review based on a dichotomy of practice and instruction under short-term and long-term conditions respectively, as well as on the denign of the investigations and certain characteristics of the individuals, resulted in general as well as in more specific statements on the arising of practice and instruction effects. In all the empirical investigations quantitative-numerical tests were used (KVR and NOG respectively), where one-of them (NOG) is a part of the so-called Swedish Scholastic Aptitude Test. The basic aim was to investigate if short-term practice (KTÖ) and short-term instruction (KTI) could have an effect upon the score of these tests. In this case practice was defined as taking a pre-test, and in the first three studies the instruction consisted of two phases: a first one concerning general testing strategies, and a second one concerning a specially adapted problem solving strategy. As a basis for the forming of this special problem solving strategy for NOG served a logically constructed and sequential problem solving strategy, which was formed as a direct influence on the individual via instruction in the first three studies, and as an indirect influence on the individual via the item format in the last three studies. From the achieved results can be mentioned that the literature paid attention to the importance of a person's knowledge of and familiarity with tests and examinations in a specific as well as in a more general sense. If a person has no or very little former experience of tests there is a certain probability that there will be a higher score due to KTÖ or KTI. This probability is reduced considerably if the person has some or relatively great former experience in this respect. This was also verified indirectly in the empirical studies, which were mainly carried out on individuals who could be classified as experienced in and familiar with tests. No practice or instruction effects could be found either in the first three studies or indirectly in the last three studies. In these ones a specially constructed item format had been used, which had been formed according to the sequential problem solving strategy. With the intention to obtain an interpretation frame for practice and instruction effects on tests, the basis in this report has been a theoretically constructed model, whereby the achieved effects are first of all related to the individual variable former experience, and secondly to whether a test consists of correctly or incorrectly constructed items. / digitalisering@umu

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