Effects of Practice upon the Scores and Predictive Value of the Alpha Intelligence Examination.

Abstract

The material upon which this report is based was derived from the examinations given a group of students who were used as controls in a study, shortly to be published, on the effects of loss of sleep.Three forms of the alpha examination in the order 5, 7, and 9, 1 were given during a forenoon class period on three consecutive days, March 2 to 4 inclusive.These examinations were chosen on the assumption that they are well equated in difficulty, and that the scores of the different forms are comparable. 2 The examinations were given on each day and scored in strict accordance with the instructions in use in the Army as 1 Dunlap and Snyder (JOUR, OF EXP.PSYCH., Oct., 1920, Vol.III., pages 396-403) used forms of the alpha examination in the order 6, 8, 5, and 9, at intervals of 'approximately three weeks.'2 Since this paper was written the fuller account of the army results from the alpha examination has come to hand {Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, 1921, Vol.XV.).Data are presented here (p.659, Table 174, and p. 660, Tables 176 and177) which show the relative difficulty of these forms for random samplings of the white draft.The differences in the difficulty of the different forms according to these data are hardly great enough to alter to an important extent the results presented in this paper.