Orgaz, C. , Matute, H. & Vadillo, M. A.
University of Deusto. Bilbao, Spain
Recent research has shown that providing easy items at the beginning of a test makes students believe they do better in it. This could be due to the earlier items being easier, but it could also be due to students’ subjective, auto-administered positive feedback during the first part of the task. In two experiments we kept the test items constantly unsolvable and manipulated whether positive or negative feedback was presented during the first or the second part of the test. In Experiment 1, the students showed recency. That is, they thought that they did better when they received positive feedback during the last part of the test and they thought that they did worst when they received negative feedback during the last part of the test. Experiment 2 replicated this result and showed that this recency effect vanishes after one hour, which is consistent with the abundant literature on recency-to-primacy shifts in various experimental paradigms. Thus, well-known learning and memory effects such as recency, primacy, and spontaneous recovery affect not only the contents of memory but also perceived self-efficacy.