A Comparison of Two College Classroom Testing Procedures: Required Remediation Versus No Remediation

Forty one subjects from a 10-week introductory course in Educational Psychology were randomly divided into two experimental groups. All students took weekly quizzes over content material. Members of one group received little or no academic credit if they performed at less than 90% on a weekly quiz, but could earn additional credit by taking a weekly remedial quiz. Members of the second group also took the initial weekly quizzes, but retained their raw scores and were not permitted to take the weekly remedial quizzes. Performance on a 100-item multiple-choice comprehensive final revealed a statistically significant and educationally important difference between the two groups, the required-remediation group scoring an average of one-half letter grade higher.