Will that Be on the Test? Perceived Task Demands and Test Performance in a Classroom Context

Departing from a realistic classroom context, this study focuses on the relationship between students' perception of task demands and their learning performance. History teachers (N=20) and their 11th-grade students (N=375) rated the relative importance of sections of an instructional text on which teachers would be giving a test. In addition, test grades were collected. It was hypothesized that the degree of correspondence between ratings of individual students and those of their teacher would reflect the accurateness of students' perception of task demands and therefore would be positively related with test grade. Multilevel analysis revealed partly support for this hypothesis. Students with higher grades more consistently showed a relative close correspondence with their teacher than students with lower grades. Nonetheless, a substantial number of students who showed a relatively close correspondence with their teacher, obtained a low test grade. This suggests that a more accurate perception of task demands did not guarantee a higher test performance. (Contains 2 tables, 1 figure, and 7 notes.)