THE USE OF SEPARATE ANSWER SHEETS BY PRIMARY AGE CHILDREN¹

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects on test scores of employing a separate answer sheet using the California Test of Mental Maturity with 117 pupils in the primary grades of one through three. The CTMM was administered twice to all students; once employing the usual answer marking format contained in the test booklet and once employing a separate answer sheet. A counterbalanced design was used to control for order effects. The mean raw differences between marking format conditions decreased from 23.67 to 10.79 to 3.32 for students in grades one through three respectively, indicating that the need for the test booklet marking format decreases sharply as the grade level of the Ss increases.

The Effect of Answer Sheet Format on Test Performance by Culturally Disadvantaged Fourth Grade Elementary School Pupils

“…Above fifth grade, subjects were able to make valid responses regardless of the specificity of the instructions rendered. This effort partially replicated a study conducted by Cashen and Ramseyer (1969). They found that first and second graders could not use a separate answer sheet properly but that bright third graders were able to do so.…”

Achievement Test Reliability as a Function of Pupil‐response Procedures

“…As has been reported by previous investigators (cf. Gaffney & Maguire, 1971;Ramseyer & Cashen, 1971;Cashen & Ramseyer, 1969;Loiselle, 1960), test scores are often adversely affected when separate answer sheets are used by lower elementary school pupils. The results of this study confirm these results.…”

Using Separate Answer Sheets with Grade 3 Students

“…The largest study (Beck, 1974) found no statistically significant differences between student performance on answer sheets and in test booklets. Of the smaller studies, three (Clark, 1968;Ramseyer & Cashen, 1971;Wise, Plake, Eastman, & Novak, 1987) found better student performance on test booklets and two (Cashen & Ramseyer, 1969;Solomon, 1971) found no significant differences in student performance whether they marked in their test booklets or on separate answer sheets.…”