Second Chances in Learning: Does a Resit Prospect Lower Study-Time Investments on a First Test?

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that the prospect of a resit opportunity lowers fictional study-time investments for a first exam, as compared to a single-chance exam (i.e., the resit effect). The present paper describes two experiments in which we aimed to generalize this effect from fictional study-time investments to a task where participants invested real time to study pairs of pseudo words for a subsequent multiple-choice test, given either a single chance or two chances to pass. Against our expectations based on previous results, the results of the current experiments showed no resit effect for the amount of time participants spent studying the materials. Taken together with previous findings and novel findings from a questionnaire study also reported in this paper, this finding leads us to argue that a resit prospect may primarily affect advance study-time allocation decisions.