Slope-Controlled Performance Testing
Abstract
Cognitive ability tests, though promising in other respects, often show pronounced practice effects and have weak test-retest reliabilities. One reason for the low reliabilities appears to be that practice effects themselves vary from individual to individual, so that subjects differ not only in the levels at which they are performing when testing ends but also in the slopes leading up to those levels. Since slope of the performance curve late in practice has been shown to affect performance at reacquisition (retest), uncontrolled variation in slope may lower test-retest reliability. A possible approach to this problem is experimentally to control slope during testing so that all subjects are improving at roughly the same rates when testing ends. Under this treatment testing (practice) is continued until an individual's improvement from the just-preceding to the last block of trials drops below a critical value; at this point testing stops. Individual subjects vary in both level of performance at the end of testing and number of test blocks, but they are all roughly comparable in the slopes of their performance curves at the end of testing (acquisition). Keywords: Standard deviation.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 18, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA211041
Entities
People
- Marshall B. Jones
Organizations
- Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center