Effect of differential instructional set on sentence completion responses.

Abstract

The effects of four different instructional sets on Sentence Completion Test (SCT) responses were studied. Four groups of 25 Ss each received different instructions to similar SCT items: (a) stressing the expression of real feeling, (6) asking for immediate response, (c) encouraging both immediate response and real feeling, and (d) neutral instructions. Results of the study suggest that differential instructional set has no significant overall effect on sentencecompletion responses, although some item clusters were more susceptible than others to variations in instructional set. While findings demonstrated no difference in mean scores by the authors' method of scoring various types of SCT instructions, the possibility cannot be ruled out that there may be differences in validity.