Length Matters. How the Length of Self-Generated Notes Used in an Exam Impacts Students' Performance, Retention, and Anxiety

Seminar paper from the year 2021 in the subject Pedagogy - Pedagogic Psychology, grade: 2,0, University of Heidelberg, course: Pädagogische Psychologie II, language: English, abstract: Compared to Closed-Book, Open-Book and single page Cheat-Sheet examination forms, utilizing Limited Notes on a social studies exam improves middle schoolers' performance and retention while lowering test anxiety. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, educators are forced to consider new evaluation forms because social distancing regulations have made traditional in-presence examinations less viable. This paper proposes that one such form, the LN examination, is superior to the previously researched CB, OB, and CS examination forms in terms of higher performance and retention as well as lower test anxiety. Students may perform better on an LN exam for a variety of reasons. This includes the likely increase in time spent studying and reviewing before an exam due to the requirements and parameters of preparing LN. A decrease in time spent searching through LN compared to OB during the exam should also provide superior performance. Furthermore, with the implementation of LN, examiners will be freer to generate more practical questions that test students' understanding and application abilities rather than rely on multiple choice and rote learning. An increase in performance in such exams with LN is expected compared to CB. This performance increase will likely only grow over time as students become familiar with studying for such reasoning- and application-based questions typical to an LN exam. Performance would further be increased due to the anticipated lowering of anxiety on such an examination type. Anxiety could conceivably be lower in the LN condition because students have access to all of the necessary material without needing to spend as much time and energy searching for the relevant information in their notes. Also, they may be comforted by the knowledge that they have much of the relevant material close at hand, further decreasing anxiety. Finally, long-term retention of the material could also be anticipated because the production of comprehensive LN likely increases memory coding of the material as well as decreasing dependency. The following study proposal suggests a comprehensive approach to test how the length of authorized notes affects middle school students' performance, retention, and anxiety in a social studies exam.