Immediate Knowledge of Results and Test Performance

Three groups of students used IBM card punchboards to receive immediate knowledge of results after each of one-half of the items on multiple-choice tests and received delayed knowledge of results on the remaining items. Two-way analysis of variance was used to test for significant differences in the results under the two conditions on each of ten 1-hour examinations and on a final examination. There were no statistically significant differences in means under immediate and delayed knowledge of results on any of the 1-hour examinations. The difference in results on the final examination, however, was significant beyond the .05 level in favor of immediate knowledge. Immediate item-by-item knowledge of results thus did not depress test performance.