Quantitative Psychology Commons^™

Rapid Response Behavior Before And During The Pandemic, Katarina E. Schaefer

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Different levels of examinee motivation pose a validity threat to the interpretation of test scores. This problem is heightened in low-stakes, remote testing environments. Though some ways exist to gauge average motivation throughout testing, less ways exist to gauge motivation fluctuations throughout a single test. One of those ways is through response times. Specifically, rapid response behavior occurs when examinees quickly answer an item without reading or engaging with the item. At James Madison University (JMU), students participating in campus-wide Assessment Days typically experienced an in-person, proctored Assessment Day. However, that changed during the pandemic. During the pandemic, examinees participated …