The Relative Difficulty of Selected Test-Wiseness Skills among College Students

Abstract

Although there is much research on test-wiseness, ease of exercising various test-taking skills has received scant attention. Participants in the present study were 243 undergraduate students who attempted the 70-item Gibb Experimental Test of Testwiseness, designed to measure seven test-wiseness skills. The results indicated the use of specific determiners as a cue to be significantly more challenging than eliminating irrelevant alternatives, selecting the alternative having the most information, or using grammar cues. It appears that not all test-wiseness skills are equally easy to employ. Researchers or trainers addressing test-wiseness should take into account these differences.