A student who wishes to take the GMAT test to apply for Masters programs approaches an online testing preparation centre for help. Upon enrolment, she is given a sample test in the very first session. She misses classes that first week because she is travelling. But in her next class, after that week, the class is given another sample test. Even without attending classes, she does 20% better. One obvious explanation for her improved performance is which of the following validity threats?

Question

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

Let's unpack the scenario and map it to validity threats in assessment.
Option 1: Testing. The student shows a 20% improvement after taking a sample test in the first session and then again in the next session, despite missing classes. This pattern is characteristic of a testing effect, where exposure to the test itself improves performance on subsequent assessments due to practice, familiarity with test formats, or retrieval practice, rather than actual changes in underlying ability. The improvement is most plausibly attributed to the repeated testing experience rather than to content learned during instruction or other factors.
Option 2: Selection. Selection bias occurs when participants are not equivalent at baseline across groups, often due to how participants are chosen or assigned. In this scenario, there’s only one student and no comparison group described, and the observed change over time is within-subject after a single exposure to testing. Therefore, selection bias does not aptly explain the improvement, since there isn’t a comparison between groups with different characteristics.
Option 3: History. History refers to external events occurring between measurements that differentially affect groups or individuals, such as a major event that suddenly raises performance. Here, there’s no mention of an external event occurring between tests that would account for the boost in performance; the timing is tied to test exposure rather than an outside influence.
Option 4: Order effect. An order effect happens when the sequence of tasks influences performance on subsequent tasks, often due to fatigue, learning, or cumulative practice effects across multiple items within a single test. While related to test-taking scenarios, the key observation here is improvement after a prior test exposure rather than within a single test's item order. The described benefit aligns more closely with the general testing effect rather than a specific sequence of items within a test, so order effects are a less fitting explanation than testing.
In summary, the most fitting validity threat that explains the observed improvement after initial exposure to testing, despite missing instructional sessions, is the Testing threat, reflecting the influence of prior test exposure on subsequent scores. The other options describe different validity concerns that do not align as well with the given pattern of improvement.

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