Introductory Psychology Student Performance: Weekly Quizzes Followed by a Cumulative Final Exam

Abstract

Students in an introductory psychology course took a quiz a week over each textbook chapter, followed by a cumulative final exam. Students missing a quiz in class could make up a quiz at any time during the semester, and answers to quiz items were available to students prior to the cumulative final exam. The cumulative final exam consisted of half the items previously presented on quizzes; half of those items had the response options scrambled. The performance on similar items on the cumulative final was slightly higher than on the original quiz, and scrambling the response options had little effect. Students strongly supported the quiz a week approach

Short- and Long-Term Effects of Cumulative Finals on Student Learning

“…For these analyses, we examined the effects of test type (cumulative vs. noncumulative) and time lag. Our separate analyses of introductory psychology surveys and upper-division surveys support Landrum's (2007) hypothesis. Specifically, for the introductory psychology surveys, we found main effects of final exam type, F(1, 328) ¼ 7.43, Z 2 ¼ .021, p < .001, and time lag, F(1, 328) ¼ 13.45, Z 2 ¼ .038, b ¼ À1.96, p < .001, with participants completing cumulative final exams producing higher survey scores than participants completing noncumulative finals and participants' survey performance decreasing as the time lag since course completion increases.…”

“…Based on Landrum (2007), we expected that students with more knowledge to gain (i.e., introductory psychology students) would benefit more from cumulative testing than would students with a prior existing knowledge base. For these analyses, we examined the effects of test type (cumulative vs. noncumulative) and time lag.…”

“…In most studies, researchers use cumulative exams as the criterion for learning within a class (i.e., as the dependent variable rather than an independent variable, e.g., Landrum, 2007). Other researchers test knowledge retention over brief periods of time (e.g., 30 min) within a lab setting (e.g., Szpunar, McDermott, & Roediger, 2007), but these experimental conditions are very dissimilar to the conditions encountered during a semester's worth of learning.…”

Contrasting Traditional In-Class Exams with Frequent Online Testing

“…Those data were then categorized by the students' final course grade (only includes exam scores, no assignments or extra credit) to examine differential effects on subsets of students. Letter grades in the course were assigned such that students earning 90-100% of the points earned an A, 80-89% earned a B, 70-79% earned a C, 60-69% earned a D, and anything below 60% earned an F. We investigated this possibility because low-performing students have been shown to benefit more from frequent quizzing than other students (Landrum, 2007). Second, a comparison of in-class and online exam scores was used to determine whether or not subsets of students (groups based on final grade) were immediately impacted by the testing manipulation.…”

“…In an attempt to counteract this behavior, we administered online exams twice as often as in-class exams (the online exams were half the length of in-class exams). Not only do students often prefer more frequent exams (Bangert-Drowns, Kulik, & Kulik, 1991), there is evidence that frequent testing can enhance learning (Landrum, 2007;McDaniel, Agarwal, Huelser, McDermott, & Roediger, 2011). Landrum (2007) found greater comprehension for students who took weekly in-class quizzes compared to those who took traditional unit exams; further, the benefits were greatest for the bottom third of students.…”