Reasons for Changing Answers: An Evaluation Using Personal Interviews

Abstract

Researchers investigating answer changing have consistently found the preponderance of changes on objective items to be from wrong to right, but little is understood about the mechanisms involved in this phenomenon. In this study, personal interviews were combined with instruction in answer‐changing research to investigate further the processes involved in answer changing. Students changed answers and gained from changing, with those in the upper two thirds of the classes gaining the most. Each test‐taking strategy produced a mean gain, but particular strategies were not significantly correlated with percentage of gain or percentage of change. Most students reported changing answers for thoughtful reasons such as rereading, rethinking, or remembering more information; very few changes were due to clerical errors. For each reason, most changes were wrong‐to‐right. We conclude that reconsideration of test items is probably underestimated in answer‐changing studies. The role of memory should be considered in why people change and in how successful they judge their changing to have been.

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