Changing test answers: A scoping review

Various disciplines at all education levels worldwide are steeped in contradictions regarding the value of answer changing on exams. Therefore, the purpose of this scoping review was to explore the current evidence related to answer changing at the graduate and undergraduate level with a focus on nursing education.

The scoping review was guided by Arksey and O'Malley's scoping review framework. The team used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews guideline to report the findings.

Using identified keywords such as answer changing, backtracking and test wiseness, researchers located forty-nine relevant studies from multiple databases. After applying the predetermined inclusion criteria including college students from all disciplines at the undergraduate or graduate level, ten remained for review.

The a priori protocol was; changing answers on tests will lower scores. Studies were randomly assigned to each researcher for a first and second review using an author designed abstraction tool. Verbal reconciliation was the third and final review of each article.

The scoping review revealed that answer changes produced more wrong to right answers. In addition, total score improvements with answer changes were as high as 45.15 %.

The synthesis of findings from 10 articles refuted assumptions that answer changing would negatively impact the number of correct responses and potentially lower the overall exam score. The findings from this scoping review support permitting answer changes. However, the varied research approaches in the studies reviewed also suggest the need to conduct further research on the topic.