Beliefs of Intelligence and Test Preparation

Beliefs of Intelligence and Test Preparation

Michelle E. Seat

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

EPSY 400
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Beliefs of Intelligence and Test Preparation

Introduction:

Motivation is one of the most puzzling, yet most critical, elements in learning considered

by teachers. Practically every person has dealt with a problem involving it; and yet, there is still

no absolute way of improving someone’s motivation. Researchers study test preparation

strategies with the hopes of discovering what makes students motivated; yet, it often depends on

the individual student. Interestingly research has begun to implicate issues of motivation

stemming from unconscious, implicit beliefs held by the student in question. These beliefs about

one’s intelligence may be different based on subject or domain. Overall I consider beliefs of

mathematical intelligence because as a math educator I am interested in the implications they

hold for our schools, class assessment policies, and in particular standardized testing policies.

Standardized testing has been an understood fact of life for all public school students in

the United States. Most standardized tests begin in middle school and really become important as

their years in school progress. Not coincidentally, as students progress through school their self-

efficacy lowers especially once they reach middle school (Usher, 2009). This might imply that

standardized testing is contributing to students’ lower self-efficacy. I want to consider what

approaches in test prep contribute to students’ beliefs of their own intelligence and how those

beliefs can have an impact on their testing performance and overall understanding of tested

concepts. The theory for beliefs of intelligence documented by Dweck and Leggett (1988) will

be considered across multiple disciplines in an attempt to establish an understanding of how test

preparation materials might promote positive beliefs of intelligence.

Although the Common Core State Standards (2010) have been created, the United States

is without a standardized curriculum across all public schools. The implementation of the CCSS

has been controversial with mixed results. Without a standardized curriculum, it is impossible to
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Beliefs of Intelligence and Test Preparation

know from only a high school degree that a student is qualified for entrance to a certain college

or program. Therefore standardized tests must be implemented to evaluate and label a students’

intelligence because all students are assessed on the same content through the same format,

which is what a standardized curriculum would attempt to accomplish. Unfortunately the

standardized tests given are often failing to encourage growth in students’ intelligence. And the

test preparation materials fail to encourage a progression of knowledge and understanding, rather

encourage a progression to a better score through rote memorization.

Studies have reviewed multiple measures considering test preparation, including

motivation, prior achievement, parental impact, practice testing and pre/post testing. How those

measures promote an incremental or entity belief of intelligence (Dweck and Leggett, 1988)

provides critique for the studies following.

While motivation as a construct may be difficult to assess, Xie’s (2013) study finds the

participants’ strategies used to assess their learning or performance based goals. When

motivation fails to show its relevance in participants’ success, researchers look to participants’

prior achievement (Buchman et al., 2010; Hong et al., 2006). Several studies also consider the

parental figures of the participants involved including their highest education level and their

expectations for their children to attend college (Park & Becks, 2015; Devine-Eller, 2012).

Finally the last approach considered, and potentially the most productive, is practice testing

(McDaniel et al., 2013; Lane et al., 2009) and pre/post testing along with other test preparation

strategies (Farnsworth, 2013; Fakcharoenphol et al., 2014).

These various measures are analyzed to see which test preparation strategy promotes an

incremental belief of intelligence. Then suggestions for standardized test delivery and

preparation can be and will reflect the importance of growing your understanding of concepts.
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Beliefs of Intelligence and Test Preparation

Theory Review:

Although you cannot pinpoint the specific moment a student’s belief about their ability in

math begins you can be sure it forms differently for every student. Imagine you are a sixth grader

and every time you ask your parents or guardians for help on your math homework they say,

“Oh, I was never good in math. Ask your teacher after school.” This student was struggling and

instead of getting help from a valuable influence in their life they were convinced only an expert

can help. Now instead image your parent said, “Hm, I haven’t seen multiplying fractions in a

while but let’s see what we can do.” Not only is that student now gaining the assistance they

were brave enough to seek out but the parent is showing them how to persevere.

These scenarios show a potential beginning to a student’s belief in their mathematical

intelligence. In the first response, you see the parent enforcing an entity belief; that their

intelligence in math is fixed. In the other response, you see the parent promoting an incremental

belief; that even though they do not know something now it can be learned and their overall

intelligence in mathematics can change and improve with effort and perseverance.

Implicit beliefs students hold are based on unconscious, personal beliefs about the world

and how they think they fit into it. These beliefs evolve over time and contribute to different

actions students make. Depending on the beliefs students hold, they pursue their work with

different goals in mind. When students hold incremental beliefs they tend to pursue learning

goals which emphasize mastery in understanding a topic. They often seek new challenges and

persist through struggles and failures. In contrast, when students hold entity beliefs they tend to

pursue performance goals which will allow them to prove their knowledge (Bruning et al.,

2011). They often avoid challenges and quit when struggles or failures come their way. When

students avoid challenges they demonstrate a “learned helplessness,” meaning they perceive a
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Beliefs of Intelligence and Test Preparation

relationship between their behavior and the event of a past failure; and they have decided they

had no control over the situation. This relationship is powerful because if students do not think

they had control in their success or failure in the first instance they are unlikely to attempt a new

challenge they do not believe they can control either (Dweck, 1975). These students with entity

beliefs, demonstrating learned helplessness, often become verbally defensive when they face

failure or are challenged. The do not think they have control over their success and they make

that known to
Experiences
those around with:

them, adamantly
Prior Parent Practice Pre/Post
Motivation
and often loudly. Achievement Interaction Testing Testing

—Impacts a person’s—
In Figure 1, there
Beliefs About
is a visual Positive Experiences Intelligence Negative Experiences
tend to foster: tend to foster:
representation of Incremental Beliefs Entity Beliefs
the components —tend to support—
Learning Goals Performance Goals
involved in
—tend to hold—
beliefs about Avoids
Seeks Challenges
Challenges
intelligence based
Persists Gives Up
on Bruning et
Attributes Attributes
al.’s (2011) Success to Effort Success to Abilty
descriptions for Demonstrates
Self-Regulated
Learned
beliefs of Helplessness
Figure 1. Characteristics in Beliefs about Intelligence
intelligence. It
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Beliefs of Intelligence and Test Preparation

demonstrates the difference a student’s belief can have on what type of goals they work towards.

It is important to consider that this social-cognitive model can apply to all beliefs of intelligence.

Although someone may have an incremental belief in one area they may have an entity belief in

another. For example someone may believe they can never improve their harmonizing skills.

They do not know how to harmonize and may have even embarrassed themselves once trying to

do so. In contrast, that same person may believe they can improve their soccer skills through

practice and observation of other skilled player. They may have even witnessed their own

improvement through daily practice versus less practice time.

Teachers in various subjects, especially math, are constantly combating students with entity

beliefs as they demonstrate their learned helplessness. Mathematics is a subject which the

majority of people have an opinion about. They hate it; they like it; they think it’s boring; but

most of all, they think they are either good or bad at it and nothing can change that ability or lack

thereof. Bruning et al. (2011) describe five “guidelines for fostering adaptive goals” which

describe promoting incremental ideas while deemphasizing other ideas (p. 144) (See Table 1 for

a summarized representation). Teachers can help students forming their beliefs by consistently

incorporating these strategies within their discourse with students.

These strategies are crucial for teachers desiring to build a learning-oriented

classroom. Although students are receiving information about their intellectual ability elsewhere,

they can begin to see how important it is to face their education with perseverance and

determination. One of the critical features to emphasize while considering assessments along

with is theory is “individual evaluative feedback.” With individual evaluative feedback the

teacher can not only boost their student’s inner confidence but they can also boost the student’s

presence in the classroom by publically assigning competence.

Table 1

Guidelines for Teachers Fostering Adaptive Goals

Emphasize: Deemphasize:

Process of Learning Products of Learning

Effort and Improvement Native Ability

Individual Evaluative Feedback Group Based Feedback

Mistakes are Normal and Healthy Mistakes are a Result from Negative Ability

Intellectual Development is Controllable Intellectual Development is Fixed

Cohen et al. (1999) define assigning competence as “a public statement that specifically

recognizes the intellectual contribution a student has made to the group task…[in order] to

change not only the student's expectations for competence but also to raise the group's

expectations for that student” (p 81). Obviously it won’t be very helpful to assign competence to

a student for doing something unrelated to the learning task like their ability to sit quietly or

doodle in their notebook. Those competences may be important in other scenarios; however,

when publically assigning competence to encourage participation of low-status students, it is

important to stay relevant to the task. For example, if a quiet student suddenly says “oh, this is

kind of like what we did yesterday,” a teacher could come by and make a point to emphasize the

remark and who made it. Then they could discuss the importance of reflecting on conceptual

connections and drawing on those connections to further their progress on the task.

Assigning competence to students publically is not easy for most teachers. It takes an

extensive knowledge of students as well as a very observant moment. It can be difficult to find
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Beliefs of Intelligence and Test Preparation

the right words to say as well, especially knowing that a lot of lower status students don’t like to

talk in a full classroom and be the center of attention. Thus assigning competence can be helpful

but needs to be done carefully as to not upset nervous students.

Even with teacher’s attempts in creating a motivating atmosphere where intellectual

ability can grow, there are required tests which can skew a student’s belief in their ability based

on their overall score versus their learning progress. These tests for achievement can have a

lasting impact on students’ mentality if delivered with the emphasis that their final score means

more than their development in the material. Not only are tests required by most organizations as

proof of a person’s knowledge but test can be enforced culturally as a means to label someone’s

level of intelligence. Even with so much negativity around testing there can there be positives

attributes in test preparation experiences that lead to an incremental belief in intelligence.

In order for test preparation to be positive for the students’ incremental belief of their

intelligence the test preparation must emphasize an understanding of the concepts covered in the

exam and include individualized feedback versus skill and drill procedures with little to no

feedback. The preparation should also emphasize the process of learning by including pre/post

test with checks of understanding throughout the process.

The theory for people’s beliefs of intelligence applies to any and all contexts and may

change based on the subject the person is being tested on. For example, a student may believe

they can consistently improve their writing skills through practice and perseverance but they may

also think that their intelligence in mathematics is limit and no amount of effort will change that.

In order for people to participate in test preparation well, the must believe they can improve in

the subject through better understanding rather bettering their score. This belief needs to be
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Beliefs of Intelligence and Test Preparation

encouraged by their instructor but also their peers. Hopefully through a productive test

preparation experience the person can learn the value of their effort in the learning of a concept.

1st Approach—Motivation:

On factor studied by researchers is motivation. For example, Xie (2013) designed a study

addressing preparations strategies used to improve College English Test Band 4 (CET4) test

scores. This English proficiency test is considered a graduation requirement for most universities

and contribute to job applications. There were different sample sizes taken at different parts of

the study. It included 847 people taking the pretest, 833 taking the posttest, and 873 taking the

questionnaire.

The questionnaire was a self-reported assessment of the strategies participants used in

preparing for the actual test. Overall, Xie measured what test takers do to prepare, if there any

patterns in those preparations, and how those test preparations contributed to test performance.

With the self-reported answers to the questionnaire, Xie found a pattern of “the most

frequently used test preparations included practicing test-taking skills, test-taking preparation

management, drilling, memorizing, and socioaffective strategies” (Xie, 2013, p. 210), in that

order. The author began to distinguish between these strategies when they considered how the

test preparation strategies contributed to test-takers performance. Xie coded some strategies as

“use strategies” which enhanced test performance and “learning strategies” which enhanced

language learning and attainment. Although the different types of strategies can attest to a small

effect in test scores, it was more effective dependent on the type of preparation. Overall they

distinguished types of test-preparation and determined the most productive strategies for learning

versus performance.
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Beliefs of Intelligence and Test Preparation

Because the students involved where volunteers, Xie considers the type of motivation

they had throughout the program. Ideally you would think volunteers would be motivated but the

author saw a lack of motivation at times, especially during the posttest. This contradicts the

participants having an incremental belief in their intelligence because they would have continued

to persist.

2nd Approach—Prior Achievement:

Hong, Sas, and Sas, (2006) study the motivational concerns behind test-preparation and

test-taking strategies. They focused on high academic achievers in mathematics versus low

achievers. Although there were many participants available the researchers chose 15 students to

represent the high-achievers and 11 to represent the low-achievers based on their interest in

mathematics, level of class taken, and scores on the Activities and Accomplishment Inventory.

Along with the AAI, the researchers measured students’ mathematical courses taken,

interview questions for test-preparation strategies, test-preparation awareness, and test-taking

strategies. To do so participating teachers helped the researchers by collected data in two phases,

first administering the AAI then researchers analyzed that data followed up with individual

student interviews. In consideration to the high-achieving students and low-achieving students,

high-achieving students used cognitive strategies, including reviewing, solving, and note-taking,

significantly more than low-achieving. High-achieving students also significantly

“accommodated their surroundings, arranged time, and sought assistance from teachers or

capable others than did low achievers” (Hong et al., p 152).

Overall higher-achieving students were more concerned with the structural organization

of solving problems and checked their answers more frequently. However motivational issues

were not found to have a significant impact on students. Hong and colleagues found no
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Beliefs of Intelligence and Test Preparation

difference in the effort made by participants; however, found that low-achieving students were

more passive in consideration to test-taking strategies.

The attempt to not just look at what students do while studying or preparing for tests and

consider instead what strategies are more important to them is valuable in consideration to their

belief of their intelligence. Belief in one’s work can make a large impact on their preparation and

overall ability. But also you may believe a certain strategy is important and incredibly useful but

not actually find the time to do it for a multitude of reasons. The authors fail to consider how

participating in the study and verbally reflecting on their beliefs in testing issues may have

contributed to their cognitive awareness or strategies.

3rd Approach—Parental Impact:

Although an important assessment for all high school students is the SAT, Buchmann,

Condron, and Roscigno (2010) question how SAT preparation may be unfairly available based

on status inequalities leading to issues in college enrollment. Buchmann et al. use data collected

by NELS to evaluate students’ use of SAT preparation considering their parents’ educational

background. While their parents’ educational background can be tied into their family income,

their parents’ highest degree obtained speaks to the ideals of education pushed in their home

which can greatly affect a student’s desire to strive and persevere in higher education.

Whereas NELS collected data from around 25,000 8th graders through parents’ surveys,

Buchman et al. only consider 8,150 students who reported already taking the SAT/ACT or

planning to take it when they became seniors. When the authors considered students highest-

level of test preparation by parental education, they found the highest parental education led to

the highest ODDS ratio at 1.451 for private tutoring. They also found that having a parent with a
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Beliefs of Intelligence and Test Preparation

college degree or higher had a significant impact to students going to any type of college;

however, having a parent with only some college only had a significant effect on a student

enrollment in non-selective 4-year colleges. Overall, parents’ educational background led to

students’ enrollment in college but not necessarily their use of SAT preparation.

Compared to Buchmann et al.’s (2010) work with the data from NELS, Devine-Eller’s

(2012) analyzes the National Household Education Survey (NHES) data as it was more recently

collected and asks whether students prepped in the current school year, thus providing more

information on the timing of test preparation activities. There are 3,373 participants included in

this analysis of whether students participated in test prep activities. Data was collected through

parent reports on phone interview.

The NHES reports on many measures including family income, parents’ highest level of

education, parents’ expectations for their children’s attainment of professional degrees, race,

students’ grade level, and course grades. These measures support the main dependent variable of

whether the student participated in any type of test preparation.

Overall Devine-Eller finds that timing played a significant role in whether a student

participated in test prep. For example the author reported that for all race groups, the probability

of participating in test prep increased as they progressed through 9th-12th grade with 42% of 12th

graders prepping and only 8% of 9th graders prepping. Test prep is relevant to college admission

and interestingly only 47% of responding parents have a college degree or more. However, 73%

of parents expect at least college degree attainment from their children. Finally in consideration

to race, income, grade level, and course grades, only black non-Hispanics and students with

mostly A’s were significantly more likely to prep.

Ultimately more data is necessary to establish the most equitable test prep availability

and in what forms. The author speaks to the validity of the test prep activities done outside of

school, which the NELS data has specific information on. A more productive impact in

preparation is likely to stem from a student’s individual desire to do well on the test for their own

needs. A student believing they can gain intelligence from their preparation is crucial to their

success and motivation to persevere.

Instead of considering data from NELS or NHES, Parks and Becks (2015) considered

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data which included 8,652 students in the

Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS-2002). They studied the influence of race, amongst

other variables, on SAT/ACT preparation and overall performance. This surveyed students, their

parents, and administrator in 2002, while students were sophomores, and in 2004, as seniors.

Overall Park et al.’s (2015) study investigates the “highest level of test preparation”

(Buchmann et al., 2010) and highest composite ACT/SAT score. The survey gave the researchers

information including race, gender, family income, ect. However, another important variable was

parents’ and student’s expectation of attending college and discussions about college and

ACT/SAT preparation.

Their findings show female students and black students were more likely to participate

in all forms of test prep (i.e., books and videos, high school course, private course, and private

tutoring), while Asian American students were more likely to only use a private course or

tutoring. Participating in a private course or tutoring was also positively related to the parents’

educational aspirations for their child. However, not all discussions with parents proved helpful

for students’ actual test scores. For example, while more discussions between parents and
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Beliefs of Intelligence and Test Preparation

children about SAT/ACT prep were associated with higher scores, more discussions about going

to college were negatively associated with their score.

Overall findings were limited to the data set. And although the authors discussed the

cultural capital reflected in their study and how parents with advanced degrees are likely to see

the importance of SAT scores for college admissions, their importance should not be solely

based on their score improving but instead understanding the concepts within the assessment.

4th Approach—Practice Testing

McDaniel, Thomas, Agarwal, McDermott, and Roediger (2013) study in their first

experiment whether quizzing in seventh-grade science classes would contribute to students’

understanding of concepts and terms when followed up by a more summative exam in the future.

Participants in this study came from a public middle school located in a suburban middle-class,

Midwest community. Although 142 students participated in the study, only 61 students managed

to meet all of the researchers’ final requirements.

All participants took a set of initial quizzes including a quiz after they completed their

assigned textbook reading, after the teacher taught the lesson, then another quiz the day before an

exam. The exam was then given at the end of unit, around 11 days after the first introduction to

the material.

Within these assessments, students were aware of their quiz score while the teacher was

only knowledgeable of their general quiz scores as a class and their individual exam scores.

Overall their results showed a significant improvement in exam performance when students’

underwent initial quizzing. The strength in results could stem from the memorization of material

by the time of the exam but they may also come from a fuller understanding of the concepts due

to a focus on improvements through failures.

In this study we are unaware of the sort of atmosphere the teacher has created to

encourage an incremental belief, although the results show that students are increasing their

understanding of the science concepts and terms no matter the type of questions assessed.

Although she was unaware of the specific scores of her students her continual interaction with

them can have an effect on their thinking when they see their own scores displayed on the board.

It is possible they held the belief that their score can be improved before their exam or the belief

that their score during the initial quizzing would probably be their score on their exam.

While McDaniel et al. (2013) studied the affect of anonymous quizzing; Lane, Kalberg,

Mofield, Wehby, and Parks (2009) studied the outcomes associated with students participating in

a specific program including quizzes, “Preparing for the ACT” program. They studied 126

eleventh graders in a school in Middle Tennessee who willfully participating in the program for

two academic years. The researchers took many measures into consideration including the

students’ grade point average (GPA), office disciplinary referrals (ODF), the actual ACT test, an

ACT practice test, treatment completeness and a student survey.

The program was put in place through the students’ homeroom sessions one a week for

26 weeks. The teachers administered the practice tests, ongoing probes to practice for the actual

test. There were six curriculum-based probes in total throughout the lessons. The lessons were

not necessarily in-depth but concentrated on developing students’ familiarity with the elements

of the subjects and tests covered. Students were encouraged to monitor their progress and seek

further assistance.

Overall the researchers found that for all subject areas, students’ probe scores after the

intervention were significant in predicting actual ACT scores. When they considered the impact

of the other measures, English was the only subject area to find relevance to student GPA and
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Beliefs of Intelligence and Test Preparation

ODRs and their actual English ACT score. With all of their results it’s important to see that the

program made a positive difference in the performance of the students who participated.

Although we can’t be certain what specific elements of the program were most useful to

students.

5th Approach—Pre/Post Testing

Farnsworth (2013) studied the effect of targeted test preparation given to students taking

English as a second language (ESL) tests. These tests include a scripted oral interview based test,

the Basis Skills Test Plus (BEST Plus) and a standardized, computer based test called the

Versant English Test (VET). The differences in delivery and measures of the tests led

Farnsworth to question how score improvements from coaching, or targeted test preparation, are

comparable between the different assessments.

Seventy-one students in an ESL adult program in NYC took full part in the study, with

the majority of participants reporting Spanish as their first language (n=59). Since the goal is to

measure the effect of coaching on the overall student’s score, each student was given both

assessments as a pretest and a posttest. After students were given the pretests they were

randomly given a “treatment” which consisted of 12 hours of “intense strategy and test format

coaching” (Farnsworth, 2013, p. 149). Thus over 6 weeks the students were only receiving

coaching in one of the testing formats however all students received both posttests. Although the

sample at posttest dwindled, the results showed scores increased significantly on both tests no

matter which treatment was given. While this study revealed large score gains, it is difficult to

discern the effect the coaching had on student test scores specifically.

Farnsworth explains the participants in this study were primarily long-tern immigrants

who have not had many opportunities to practice their English or learn from English
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Beliefs of Intelligence and Test Preparation

professionals in any sense. Although this seemed to make most of the students appreciate the

extra support and be motivated to learn, the fact that less than 45 students showed up for their

posttest begs to question their actual foundation for motivation.

Not only do pre and post tests contribute to Farnsworth’s work, it is also a focus in

Fakcharoenphol and Stelzer’s (2014) work on the effect of practice exams and other learning

resources on students’ physics exam scores. Their goal was to measure the change in exam

scores based on the difference in specific learning resources given to students. The 44 college

participants whom completed the study were split into four groups. One set of students was the

control group and received not additional resources, one was given only practice exams, another

was given practice exams and three homework problems based on their practice exam answers,

and the last group was given those resources plus one-on-one tutor sessions.

The researchers found students for the study based on students’ first midterm scores.

Once enrolled in the study, non-control group students came in for three sessions before their

next midterm. Those given extra homework problems were given a maximum of three problems

and final answers related to their practice test and instructed to return them before their next

session. Students receiving extra homework problem and tutoring took the practice test than

immediately had an hour to work with the tutor. Overall they found a significant improvement in

exam scores between the treatment participants than the control group. In fact, on average, scores

from the first test to the second test decreased for the students in the control yet the other groups

of students had an increasing average score. However the tutoring group did not do significantly

better than the other groups. Ultimately, practice tests were a positive study strategy to improve

student exam scores.

Although they consider the effect that participants dropping out of the study had an effect

on the tutoring treatment they do not consider the procedure of the tutoring. The tutoring being

done immediately after their practice exam give the students no time to self-motivate and learn

where their mistakes were. I have to wonder what sort of affect the timing of the tutoring effects

students’ idea of improvement. They were given related homework based on the tutor’s

assessment of their needs which allows them to go back, try more problems and reflect. However

if that process was done before their tutoring session, students may have showed more

motivation for their own independent growth or are they basing their growth on the success of

the tutoring session.

Conclusion:

Not only do the results from these nine articles have implications for test preparation,

they also have implications for teachers to improve students’ beliefs of intelligence. The theories,

including entity beliefs and incremental beliefs, suggest teachers use several methods to promote

adaptive goals which in turn foster learning. Techniques to promote learning include

emphasizing the process of learning and that mistakes including failure are part of a normal and

healthy learning process. An emphasis of effort and improvement should be a basis for how

intelligence is grown; because if you foster adaptive goals, you believe that intellectual

development is controllable.

Limitations:

In the consideration of the studies summarized in this paper, Xie’s (2013) work is the

most specific in considering participants learning goals versus performance goals. She considers

a model that describes “use strategies” to enhance test performance versus “learning strategies”

to enhance language learning and attainment. Based on her data however she finds “that test
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Beliefs of Intelligence and Test Preparation

takers used learning strategies scarcely relative to their uses of use strategies during test

preparation period” (Xie, 2013, p. 221). This along with the fact that she found overall

motivation decrease towards the end of the test cycle indicates the participants’ pursuit in

performance goals instead of learning goals.

Motivation was also considered in Hong et al.’s (2006) work. However they found that

motivational issues were not found to have a significant impact on participant’s test preparation.

Instead they found that past low achievement led to more passive behaviors in consideration to

test-taking strategies. Buchman et al. (2010) also addresses participants’ prior achievement.

However, in contrast to Hong et al’s (2006) findings, Buchman et al. (2010) found that

participants with past low achievement participated in more test preparation. These contrasting

studies show there is more factors to test preparation than prior achievements. In consideration of

beliefs of intelligence, some may argue that in Buchman et al.’s (2010) study the participants

deciding to take part in test preparation after prior failures may have an incremental belief of

their intelligence. However their data is not definitive per that consideration.

Another factor considered in some studies was the participants’ parents’ highest level of

education. Many studies found that the higher the parents’ education the more the participants

took part in higher level or higher quantity of test preparation (Buchman et al., 2010; Devine-

Eller, 2012). Parents’ expectations for their children and conversations with them can also have

in impact on the students test preparation strategies (Park & Becks, 2015). Still more parents

expect their children to receive college degrees than have a college degree themselves. This

demonstrates an importance of the surrounding educated people; however, the conversations had

with parents are influential to the students’ belief of their own intelligence and what dedication it

takes to attain a college degree.

Practice testing is considered in these studies along with various strategies along with the

formal testing. Lane et al. (2009) incorporated specific ACT practice tests along with a full

intervention created by the ACT creators. Overall the program led to a positive difference in the

performance of the students who participated although the action of completing a practice test

was not compared to the rest of the intervention. And McDaniel et al. (2013) incorporated graded

quizzes in their study to assess students’ improvement throughout practice. Their study found a

great improvement in scores through quizzing along with textbook readings and teacher taught

lessons. With this consistency in quizzing it is possible students were pursuing performance

goals throughout the study; however, some may also argue that the repetition of individualized

feedback may have contributed to students having adaptive goals.

Farnsworth (2013), Fakcharoenphol et al. (2014) incorporate pre/post testing along with

another learning strategy. Farnsworth (2013) studied the effect of coaching attributes while

Fakcharoenphol et al. (2014) studies the effect of immediate tutoring. Although coaching and

tutoring can be productive strategies in encouraging adaptive goals the implementation is critical.

The tutoring sessions were given immediately after an assessment and rather encourage the

student to consider their mistakes first and how they can grow from them, they were given help

with how to answer them along with a new set of homework problems to work through.

Although coaching was beneficial to students’ overall score, the coaching involved intense help

in test format and test-taking strategies. Those coaching activities build a better understanding of

the test itself, which is important, but does not necessarily build a better understanding of the

content.

Overall test preparation can be helpful to students’ test performance. Whether students

have equitable access to test preparation materials is an issue that I believe needs further
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Beliefs of Intelligence and Test Preparation

analysis. Some of the included studies attempts to address that by considering social economic

status, race, ethnicity, parents income, parents highest education, etc.; however, no study

considers public school or free test preparation and their benefits or pit falls.

Suggestions:

A study which takes into consideration the availability of test preparation materials and

the beliefs students hold about their own intelligence in the area of assessment is needed. The

study would examine how and what the participants do to prepare for major assessments; but

more specifically, why they prepare in that way with those materials. Like some of the included

studies, this study would also consider the culture around standardized test and test preparation

and address those concerns when considering the test preparation materials and strategies. If test

preparation only encourages a better score, then the culture around standardized test will never

change.
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Beliefs of Intelligence and Test Preparation

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