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Test difficulty and judgment bias
1Department of Educational Psychology, University of Nebraska, Lincoln 68588-0641.
Memory & Cognition
|January 1, 1994
Summary
Overconfidence in test performance stems primarily from test difficulty, not individual errors. People also set high personal success standards, contributing to this overconfidence.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Educational Psychology
Background:
- Overconfidence in performance judgments is a common cognitive bias.
- Previous research has explored both test-related and person-related factors contributing to this bias.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the primary drivers of overconfidence in performance judgments.
- To differentiate the roles of test difficulty versus individual differences in overconfidence.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis.
- Experiment 1 manipulated item difficulty within a homogeneous test.
- Experiment 2 controlled for test difficulty across different tests.
Main Results:
- Test difficulty was the predominant factor explaining variation in overconfidence.
- Controlling for test difficulty eliminated differences in overconfidence severity across unrelated tests.
- A high personal success criterion also contributed to overconfidence.
Conclusions:
- Overconfidence in performance judgments is largely attributable to the difficulty of the test.
- Individual success criteria play a secondary role in the overconfidence phenomenon.