Secondary Analysis of a Major Societal Experiment

Joseph J. Locascio
Additional contact information
Joseph J. Locascio: University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana

Evaluation Review, 1984, vol. 8, issue 2, 141-166

Abstract: This work presents a methodological critique and secondary analysis of a large scale societal experiment performed by Kellaghan, et al. (1982) that studied the educational and psychological effects of the introduction of standardized achievement/ability testing in elementary schools in Ireland . The author considers the study by Kellaghan et al. to be of high quality; however, given the potential importance of this study, a methodological critique and secondary analysis are appropriate to provide an independent assessment of validity of findings, confirmation or disconfirmation of results, and a checkfor important effects that may have been missed by the original investigators. Some points of methodological criticism discussed involve the questionable validity of cross-lagged correlation analyses, spillover of treatments, insufficient measurement of treatment effects, and Hawthorne effects. Secondary analyses not performed by the original researchers found evidence of effects not indicated in the original report for the study. Some of the more important reanalyses found evidence of positive effects of immediate and delayed test feedback on student ability and achievement, and indications of positive effects of testing and test feedback on group variance of achievement possibly due to labeling processes and differential motivational effects on high versus low initial scorers.

Date: 1984
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0193841X8400800201 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:evarev:v:8:y:1984:i:2:p:141-166

DOI: 10.1177/0193841X8400800201

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Evaluation Review
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().