Students’ study habits during independent study sessions were examined. Controlling for preparation, total study time, and class absences, it was found that active study strategy use positively predicted exam score, study spacing potential did not predict exam score, and distraction during study sessions negatively predicted exam score.

Objectives Memory complaints are present in adults of all ages but are only weakly related to objective memory deficits, raising the question of what their presence may indicate. In older adults, memory complaints are moderately related to negative affect, but there is little research examining this relationship in young and middle-aged adults. This study examined whether memory complaints and negative affect were similarly related across the adult lifespan and in adults with varying levels of objective memory performance. Method The sample included 3,798 healthy adults aged 18 to 99, and was divided into five groups: young, middle-aged, young-old, old-old, and oldest-old adults. Participants completed questionnaire measures of memory complaints and negative affect (neuroticism and depressive and anxiety symptoms), in addition to lab measures of objective memory. Results Using structural equation models, we found that the relationship between memory complaints and negative affect was moderate in all the age groups, and there was no evidence for moderation by objective memory. Conclusion For adults of all ages, perceived memory decline may be distressing and/or negative affect may lead to negative self-evaluations of memory.

The reported research tested the hypothesis that young children detect logical inconsistency in communicative contexts that support the evaluation of speakers’ epistemic reliability. In two experiments (N = 194), 3- to 5-year-olds were presented with two speakers who expressed logically consistent or inconsistent claims. Three-year-olds failed to detect inconsistencies (Experiment 1), 4-year-olds detected inconsistencies when expressed by human speakers but not when read from books, and 5-year-olds detected inconsistencies in both contexts (Experiment 2). In both experiments, children demonstrated skepticism toward testimony from previously inconsistent sources. Executive function and working memory each predicted inconsistency detection. These findings indicate logical inconsistency understanding emerges in early childhood, is supported by social and domain general cognitive skills, and plays a role in adaptive learning from testimony.

The introductory psychology course is offered by nearly all undergraduate psychology programs. Given its prominence in curricula, there have been calls to develop reliable and valid assessments of introductory psychology knowledge to inform and evaluate instruction. The current research, guided by the American Psychological Association's five content pillars model for the introductory course, developed and evaluated a relatively brief inventory that can be easily administered and scored to assess students' knowledge of introductory psychology. We followed established test development guidelines to write and revise inventory items. Then, we conducted two evaluation studies in which we administered the inventory to introductory psychology courses at two higher education institutions and to a sample of US adults to assess the reliability and validity of the test. Results suggested that the inventory has convergent (high correlations with course exam scores, all ps Ͻ .001), discriminant (low correlations with ACT English and Reading scores, all ps Ͻ .05), and known-groups validity (students that had taken high school psychology scored higher, all ps Ͻ .001). The inventory also demonstrated adequate test-retest reliability across a 1-week time interval, r ϭ .80, p Ͻ .001. In a third study, we surveyed introductory psychology instructors about the inventory. The majority (97.4%) reported that it was representative of typical course content, and 75.7% reported they would use the inventory. We conclude that this introductory psychology knowledge inventory offers a practical, useful, reliable, and valid means of assessing students' knowledge and learning in the introductory course.

We examined self-directed studying of students in an introductory (Study 1) and upper-level (Study 2) psychology course. Students reported their study behaviors for Exam 1 and 2, and wrote Exam 2 study plans. In both studies, students planned to and ultimately did use more active strategies for Exam 2 than Exam 1. However, they struggled to follow through on plans to space studying over time. In Study 1, we also found that greater use of active strategies (e.g., retrieval practice) was associated with higher exam scores when controlling for factors such as study time. Our findings highlight that students across course levels are interested in changing their study behaviors and we note implications for instructors.