Effects of appeal of immediate prior experience upon performance on a psycho-educational test battery
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Abstract
The purpose of the study was to determine if preference level of a class from which a student was removed would affect performance on an abbreviated psycho-educational test battery. It also examined the effect of a student's cognitive style on performance on the test battery.Subjects were 76 seventh-grade students. On the base of a double median spilt of time and error sores from the MFFT, 37 of these students had been identified as reflective and 39 as impulsive. The students were randomly assigned to be removed from either their favorite or least favorite class. The students were then removed from the assigned class and individually administered an abbreviated psycho-educational test battery by a certified psychometrist/psychol.ogist.The three null hypotheses were tested using a multivariate analysis of variance with univariate F-ratios to further investigate significant differences. The .01 level of significance was used.There was no significant difference found between performances of those students removed from preferred classes and those students removed from non-preferred classes. Reflective students, however, performed better on a linear com-posite of achievement, ability, and visual-motor tests. When this relationship was examined further, reflective students were found -to do better on the math and reading achievement and visual-motor tests, but not on the subtests measuring verbal intelligence.The results of this study suggested that school psychologists, teachers, and others who interpret the results of achievement tests need to be cautious. Errors on these kinds of tests have been frequently interpreted in the past to be indicative of low ability. Rather, errors may be explained by a student's tendency to respond hastily, and thus inaccurately.