Test Disclosure and Retest Performance on the Scholastic Aptitude Test.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of disclosing a Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) form on the retest performance of examinees who initially had been tested with the disclosed form and subsequently retested with a different form. Retest performance was compared for three random samples of examinees who had been tested with the SAT as high school juniors in the May 1981 administration in New York and then retested with it in the October 1981 administration: the standard set of disclosed material for the May SAT was sent to two experimental groups, along with either a noncommittal or an encouraging letter intended to vary their motivation to use the material; nothing was sent to the control group. The three groups were generally similar in the level, stability, and concurrent validity of their October scores, indicating that access to the disclosed material had no appreciable effects on retest performance. The absence of differences for the two experimental groups and for subgroups within them that would have been most apt to use the material suggests that use of the material had no discernible effect either. (Author)