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Psychological proximity improves reasoning in academic aptitude tests
Britt Hadar1,2, Maayan Katzir3, Sephi Pumpian4
1School of Psychological Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel. britt.hadar@gmail.com.
NPJ Science of Learning
|April 29, 2023
Summary
Academic aptitude test (AAT) questions invoking proximal details improve performance, particularly for low-achieving students. This suggests psychological distance in question content significantly impacts high-stakes test outcomes.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Educational Measurement
Background:
- Standardized academic aptitude tests (AAT) significantly influence life outcomes.
- The specific content characteristics of test questions and their impact on performance remain underexplored.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effect of psychological distance within AAT questions on examinee performance.
- To identify potential moderators influencing the relationship between question distance and test outcomes.
Main Methods:
- Study 1: Classified existing AAT questions based on psychological distance (proximal vs. distal) for a large sample (N=41,209).
- Studies 2 & 3: Manipulated question distance in adapted AATs, examining moderators like AAT score, working memory, and irrelevant information (N=129 and N=1744).
Main Results:
- Proximal questions were associated with better performance than distal questions, especially for low-achieving examinees.
- Proximity enhanced performance in low-achieving participants in manipulated studies.
- The positive effect of proximity was more pronounced for low-achieving examinees when questions contained irrelevant information.
Conclusions:
- The psychological distance invoked by test question content has significant consequences for performance on high-stakes academic aptitude tests.
- Test question framing, specifically its psychological distance, is a critical factor to consider in test design and interpretation, particularly for vulnerable student populations.
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