LEARNING TEST‐WISENESS BY PROGRAMMED TEXTS¹

Abstract

High school seniors (84 males, 77 females) were randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups. One group received a programmed text designed to teach S s to answer every item on an examination, whether or not the directions included a penalty for incorrect answers. The other group was administered a programmed text to teach certain selected aspects of test‐wiseness. Each group served as the control group for the other. The following day all S s were administered a measure of willingness to guess and a measure of test‐wiseness. Two weeks later, all S s received additional measures of willingness to guess and test‐wiseness. Analysis of the data indicated the group that received the guessing program answered significantly more items than its control group (on both the immediate and delayed tests), even though there was a penalty for incorrect answers. In similar fashion, the group exposed to the test‐wiseness program achieved significantly higher mean test‐wiseness scores than its control group.