Differential Daily Writing Contingencies and Performance on Major Multiple-Choice Exams

Effects of writing-related contingencies on both quality of writing and multiple-choice exam performance in large college courses.

“…The primary purpose of this study was to determine if randomly selecting a few daily quizzes to credit would improve exam performance to the same degree as daily quizzes with all counting toward course credit. Hautau et al (2006b) previously concluded that writing for daily credit was superior to writing for random credit; however, this difference might have been attributable to the different reinforcement schedules or the different amounts of potential credit under the two contingencies. Current findings support the latter possibility: random writing credit can lead to exam performance statistically comparable to daily writing credit when the potential credit is equivalent under the two contingencies.…”

“…When credit on an intermittent schedule is sufficiently large, students will likely deem the quizzes to be important, keep up with assigned readings, and study for the quizzes, which will consequently contribute to exam performance. Hautau et al (2006b) showed that even a small amount of credit for quizzes leads to better exam performance than no credit awarded for quizzes. Therefore, although the students likely benefited from the WRSC condition, perhaps students worked even harder to prepare for the quizzes in the WRLC condition because each quiz potentially had greater impact on their grade.…”

“…Students took a 50-item, multiple-choice exam at the end of each unit in the course. A previous study using these exams reported high (.87) internal consistency for the exam items (Turner et al, 2006b). The exams included most of the concepts embedded in the study questions over the instructor notes in Units B-E.…”

“…Most undergraduates likely take some courses that use multiple-choice exams as a major source of course credit. Instructors may be especially inclined to use multiple-choice exams in large courses because of ease and efficiency of grading (Hautau et al, 2006b). Nonetheless, many students report difficulty in taking multiple-choice exams, claiming that they could do better on essay exams.…”

“…Recent attempts to clarify the conditions under which daily writing could efficiently promote writing and exam scores have been reported by Hautau et al (2006a; 2006b). Hautau et al (2006a) required students to analyze in writing pairs of concepts that could be found within instructor notes available to students.…”