A Psychometric Examination of the Anagram Persistence Task: More Than Two Unsolvable Anagrams May Not Be Better

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to examine a single-anagram, a double-anagram, and multi-anagram versions of the Anagram Persistence Task (APT) for factorial validity, reliability, and convergent validity. Additionally, a battery of intelligence tests was administered to examine convergent validity. Based on an unrestricted factor analysis, two factors were uncovered from the 14 anagram (seven very difficult and seven very easy) response times: test-taking persistence and verbal processing speed. The internal consistency reliabilities for the single-anagram, double-anagram, and multi-anagram (seven difficult anagrams) measures were .42, .85, and .86, respectively. Furthermore, all three versions of the APT correlated positively with intelligence test performance ( r ≈ .22). However, the double-anagram and multi-anagram versions also evidenced negative, nonlinear effects with intelligence test performance ( r ≈ -.15), which suggested the possibility of testee adaptation. Taking psychometrics and administration time into consideration, simultaneously, the double-anagram version of the APT may be regarded as preferred.

Cognitive Persistence and Executive Function in the Multilingual Brain During Aging

“…Performance on behavioral persistence tasks predicts adherence to addiction disorder treatment programs (Daughters et al, 2005a,b,c), demonstrating their relevance for evaluating maintenance of effort in the face of real-world stressors. Consistent with the premise that persistence affects performance on cognitive tasks, time spent on unsolvable anagrams during the APT is modestly, positively correlated with a factor measuring general intelligence (Gignac and Wong, 2018). Taken together, these findings suggest that the amount of time participants spend trying to complete a cognitively-demanding task is a valid assessment of their willingness to persist to overcome a mental challenge.…”

Test-Taking Motivation in Education Students: Task Battery Order Affected Within-Test-Taker Effort and Importance

“…Some researchers have used response times to test the assumption of low test-taking motivation reflected in low effort (Wise and Kong, 2005;Hartig and Buchholz, 2012;Debeer et al, 2014;Rios et al, 2014), examining persistence levels in terms of response times on puzzle tasks, or response times on anagram tasks (e.g., Gignac and Wong, 2018). Other studies included changes in response times over the course of an achievement test as indicators for test-taking motivation (Hartig and Buchholz, 2012;Goldhammer et al, 2017).…”