The Classic Wanderer

What Is Practice Effect In Psychology?

• Sabrina Sarro
• 05.05.2023
• 0
• 19

Any change or improvement that results from practice or repetition of task items or activities.

What is the definition of practice effect?

Definition – The changes in test performance attributed to practice with the test material(s) and/or prior exposure to test instruments, paradigms, or settings.

What is an example of a practice effect?

Practice effects are influences on test results when a test is taken more than once. As a simple example, a practice effects occurs when you take multiple practice SAT exams; practice can increase your overall score.

What is practice effect in cognitive theory?

Abstract – Practice effects, defined as improvements in cognitive test performance due to repeated exposure to the test materials, have traditionally been viewed as sources of error. However, they might provide useful information for predicting cognitive outcome.

The current study used three separate patient samples (older adults with mild cognitive impairments, individuals who were HIV +, individuals with Huntington’s disease) to examine the relationship between practice effects and cognitive functioning at a later point. Across all three samples, practice effects accounted for as much as 31 to 83% of the variance in the follow-up cognitive scores, after controlling for baseline cognitive functioning.

If these findings can be replicated in other patients with neurodegenerative disorders, clinicians and researchers may be able to develop predictive models to identify the individuals who are most likely to demonstrate continued cognitive decline across time.

The ability to utilize practice effects data would add a simple, convenient, and non-invasive marker for monitoring an individual patient’s cognitive status. Additionally, this prognostic index could be used to offer interventions to patients who are in the earliest stages of progressive neurodegenerative disorders.

Keywords: practice effects, cognitive outcome, Mild Cognitive Impairment, HIV, Huntington’s disease Practice effects, defined as improvements in cognitive test performance due to repeated evaluation with the same test materials, have traditionally been viewed as sources of error variance rather than diagnostically useful information.

Recently, however, it has been suggested that this psychometric phenomenon might prove useful in predicting cognitive outcome. For example, Darby et al. (2002) repeatedly administered a computerized battery of cognitive tasks to a group of patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and matched controls over the course of a single day.

The results of this study indicated that healthy control participants improved across testing sessions, whereas individuals with MCI did not, even though the two groups were comparable at baseline testing. This short-term difference might have significant prognostic value.

In another study, Newman et al. (2001) followed coronary-artery bypass surgery patients with serial neuropsychological testing and were able to predict their future cognitive status using the absence of practice effects between a baseline and a one-week follow-up evaluation. In that study, practice effects predicted cognitive status at 5-year follow-up.

Therefore, the purpose of the current study is to examine the relationship between the practice effects and later cognitive outcomes in patients diagnosed with one of three progressive, neurodegenerative disorders. If short-term changes in cognition (e.g., practice effects) are predictive of longer-term changes in cognition, then important decisions (e.g., initiating interventions, stopping driving, moving to a more dependent living situation) can be made sooner by the patient and his/her family.

What is the difference between carry over effect and practice effect?

Between-Subjects or Within-Subjects? – Almost every experiment can be conducted using either a between-subjects design or a within-subjects design. This possibility means that researchers must choose between the two approaches based on their relative merits for the particular situation.

Between-subjects experiments have the advantage of being conceptually simpler and requiring less testing time per participant. They also avoid carryover effects without the need for counterbalancing. Within-subjects experiments have the advantage of controlling extraneous participant variables, which generally reduces noise in the data and makes it easier to detect any effect of the independent variable upon the dependent variable.

Within-subjects experiments also require fewer participants than between-subjects experiments to detect an effect of the same size. A good rule of thumb, then, is that if it is possible to conduct a within-subjects experiment (with proper counterbalancing) in the time that is available per participant—and you have no serious concerns about carryover effects—this design is probably the best option.

• If a within-subjects design would be difficult or impossible to carry out, then you should consider a between-subjects design instead.
• For example, if you were testing participants in a doctor’s waiting room or shoppers in line at a grocery store, you might not have enough time to test each participant in all conditions and therefore would opt for a between-subjects design.

Or imagine you were trying to reduce people’s level of prejudice by having them interact with someone of another race. A within-subjects design with counterbalancing would require testing some participants in the treatment condition first and then in a control condition.

But if the treatment works and reduces people’s level of prejudice, then they would no longer be suitable for testing in the control condition. This difficulty is true for many designs that involve a treatment meant to produce long-term change in participants’ behavior (e.g., studies testing the effectiveness of psychotherapy).

Clearly, a between-subjects design would be necessary here. Remember also that using one type of design does not preclude using the other type in a different study. There is no reason that a researcher could not use both a between-subjects design and a within-subjects design to answer the same research question.

In fact, professional researchers often take exactly this type of mixed methods approach. An experiment in which each participant is tested in only one condition. Means using a random process to decide which participants are tested in which conditions. All the conditions occur once in the sequence before any of them is repeated.

An experiment design in which the participants in the various conditions are matched on the dependent variable or on some extraneous variable(s) prior the manipulation of the independent variable. An experiment in which each participant is tested under all conditions.

• An effect that occurs when participants’ responses in the various conditions are affected by the order of conditions to which they were exposed.
• An effect of being tested in one condition on participants’ behavior in later conditions.
• An effect where participants perform a task better in later conditions because they have had a chance to practice it.

An effect where participants perform a task worse in later conditions because they become tired or bored. Unintended influences on respondents’ answers because they are not related to the content of the item but to the context in which the item appears.

Varying the order of the conditions in which participants are tested, to help solve the problem of order effects in within-subjects experiments. A method in which an equal number of participants complete each possible order of conditions. A method in which the order of the conditions is randomly determined for each participant.

: 24 Experimental Design

What is an example of practice effect and fatigue effect?

Examples of order effects include: (i) practice effect: an improvement in performance on a task due to repetition, for example, because of familiarity with the task ; (ii) fatigue effect: a decrease in performance of a task due to repetition, for example, because of boredom or tiredness.

How do you measure practice effects?

2.4.2. Practice Effects – The practice effect was examined by the effect size for the magnitude of the change scores and paired t -tests for the significance of the change scores. The effect size was calculated as the mean change scores between the test–retest divided by the standard deviation (SD) of the first assessment,

How can practice effects be reduced in psychology?

Ways to Control Order Effects – Researchers use a variety of methods to reduce or control order effects so that they do not affect the study outcome. The choice depends on the types of effects that are expected. Practice effects can be reduced by providing a warm-up exercise before the experiment begins.

Fatigue effects can be reduced by shortening the procedures and making the task more interesting. Carryover and interference effects can be reduced by increasing the amount of time between conditions. Researchers also reduce order effects by systematically varying the order of conditions so that each condition is presented equally often in each ordinal position.

This procedure is known as counterbalancing. For example, with two conditions, half of the participants would receive condition A first followed by condition B; the other half would receive condition B first followed by condition A. Sometimes there are so many possible orders that it is not practical to include all of them in a study.

Is practice effect bias?

1. BACKGROUND – Practice effects (PEs) are expected improvements in cognitive performance seen on repeated exposure to test material in the absence of intervention.1 PEs, also referred to as retest or learning effects, are typically viewed as a source of bias or error when analyzing data from repeated cognitive assessments, 2, 3 particularly in the study of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative disorders leading to dementia where cognitive decline is a key marker of clinical change.4, 5 PEs can hinder our understanding of the disease course of AD and other neurodegenerative diseases, as well as improve the evaluation of interventions that aim to slow or halt cognitive decline.6 That is, by masking cognitive decline due to an underlying neurodegenerative process or by inflating cognitive gain in the absence of treatment induced brain changes, PEs may lead to underestimating the severity of disease progression or overestimating the efficacy of treatment effects.7 The absence of PEs may also provide useful information in the context of AD and dementia.

More specifically, one might expect attenuated PEs in disorders such as mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD, in which learning is compromised. This was, for example, supported by Duff et al., 8 who showed that lower PEs were predictive of cognitive decline 1 year later in individuals with MCI. Another study found that cognitively healthy older adults who later progressed to AD dementia had substantially lower PEs on episodic memory tasks compared to those who remained cognitively healthy.9 Together, these findings suggest that lower PEs may indicate a subtle cognitive impairment preceding overt reduction in cognitive performance, and may serve as an early marker to differentiate neurodegeneration from healthy cognitive aging.

This would be of particular relevance in pre‐dementia disease stages such as MCI or subjective cognitive decline, when objective cognitive decline is modest or not easily captured by traditional cognitive assessments.10, 11 Therefore, the aim of the current review was to examine the role of PEs as a potential marker for cognitive decline in the study of cognitive aging.

Previous summaries of the PE literature in aging populations have largely focused on PEs as a source of bias. An example is the meta‐analysis by Calamia et al., which examined the magnitude of PEs on several widely‐applied cognitive tests (both memory and non‐memory tests), and investigated the influence of age, test‐retest interval, use of alternate forms, and clinical diagnosis on those effects.12 Of interest, they found that clinical groups (ie, patients with neurological or psychiatric conditions) showed lower PE on average compared to cognitively healthy adults.

The authors concluded that PEs should be accounted for in cognitively healthy populations to accurately assess group‐level changes. Moreover, this finding also suggests that lower PEs in patient groups may reflect a cognitive (ie, learning) deficit, which could serve as a clinical marker of interest.

What is an example of practice in psychology?

N. repetition of an act, behavior, or series of activities, often to improve performance or acquire a skill. For example, members of sports teams may engage in a preplanned series of activities organized for such purposes as learning a pattern of play or increasing physical fitness.

What does practice mean in theory?

Theory and Practice Explained – Practice refers to the actual observation, operation, or experiment. Practice is the observation of disparate concepts (or a phenomenon) that needs explanation. A theory is a proposed explanation of the relationship between two or more concepts, or an explanation for how/why a phenomenon occurs.

What is cognitive effect in psychology?

Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology dedicated to studying how people think. The cognitive perspective in psychology focuses on how the interactions of thinking, emotion, creativity, and problem-solving abilities affect how and why you think the way you do.

Cognitive psychology attempts to measure different types of intelligence, determine how you organize your thoughts, and compare different components of cognition. Cognitive psychologists do clinical research, training, education, and clinical practice. They use the insights gained from studying how people think and process information to help people develop new ways of dealing with problem behaviors and live better lives.

Cognitive psychologists have special knowledge of applied behavior analysis, behavior therapy, learning theories, and emotional processing theories. They know how to apply this knowledge to the human condition and use it in the treatment of:

Anxiety disorders Academic performancePersonality disorders Substance abuse Depressive disorders Relationship problems Autism spectrum disorder TraumaEmotional regulation

Cognitive psychology gained popularity in the 1950s to 1970s as researchers became more interested in how thinking affects behavior. This period is called the “cognitive revolution” and represented a shift in thinking and focus for psychologists. Before this time, the behaviorist approach dominated psychology.

The behaviorists only studied external behavior that could be measured. Behaviorists believed it was pointless to try to study the mind because there was no way to see or objectively measure what happened in someone’s thoughts. The mind was seen as a black box that couldn’t be measured. The cognitive approach gave rise to the idea that internal mental behavior could be studied using experiments.

Cognitive psychology assumes that there is an internal process that occurs between when a stimulus happens and when you respond to it. These processes are called mediational processes and can involve memory, perception, attention, problem-solving, or other processes.

Cognitive psychologists believe if you want to understand behavior, you have to understand the mediational processes that cause it. Some examples of studies and work in cognitive psychology include: Experts think differently. Beginners think literally when they try to solve a problem. They tend to focus on the surface details when they’re presented with an unfamiliar situation.

Experts are able to see the underlying connections and think of the problem more abstractly. Short-term memory. Your short-term memory is probably a lot shorter than you think. A classic study in cognitive psychology found that participants in a study could only recall 10% of random three-letter strings after 18 seconds.

1. After 3 seconds, the participants could recall 80% of the letter strings, so there was a significant drop after 15 additional seconds.
2. Mapping the brain.
3. Some cognitive psychologists are working on the BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative.
4. This project has been compared to the human genome project.

It’s an attempt to learn more about the 100 billion brain cells, including the connections between them and how they relate to behavior and health. Cognitive psychology perspectives can be used to improve many areas of life, including how children learn.

1. Researchers Pooja K.
2. Agarwal and Henry L.
3. Roediger III used insights from their cognitive psychology studies to develop better practices to encourage learning in the classroom.
4. They used experiments to determine how students learn and apply their knowledge as well as disprove outdated theories.
5. Experts used to believe that memory could be improved with practice, a theory that has been disproven.

Another popular theory that has been debunked is that errors interfere with learning. The opposite is actually true. You learn from your mistakes, so making errors improves your ability to learn. While most educators have moved beyond those theories, there are still some unproven ones that linger, like the notion that different people have different learning styles.

Retrieval practice, which is quickly bringing the information you’re learning to mindGetting feedback that lets you know what you don’t knowSpaced practice, which is returning to the material periodically over timeInterleaving, which is practicing a mix of skills

Cognitive psychologists can work at universities doing research or teaching. They can also work in the private sector in organizational psychology, software development, or human-computer interaction. Another option for cognitive psychologists is working in a clinical setting treating patients for issues related to mental processes, like:

Alzheimer’s disease Speech problemsMemory issuesSensory difficulties

You can work in some entry-level jobs with a bachelor’s degree in cognitive psychology, but most opportunities will be available to people with a master’s or doctorate degree. Most research done by people with master’s degrees is supervised by cognitive psychologists with doctorate degrees.

What is the effect of practice on learning?

Don’ts: –

1. Don’t ask students to practice complex problem solving without providing them with plenty of guidance and feedback.
2. Don’t overload students by presenting information in redundant formats.
3. Don’t give your students complex practice problems before they have the skills they need to succeed.

Human memory Research suggests that when teachers construct problems for students to practice, they should keep in mind the limitations of human memory, Moving information to permanent storage is often explained as a multistore model of memory (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968; 1971; Baddeley, 1996; 2002).

According to this model, our brains have three memory storage systems: sensory memory, short-term memory and long-term memory (Baddeley, 1996; 2002; Carlson, Sullivan, & Schneider, 1989). Learning occurs when we move information from working memory to long-term memory, and practice helps with this process.

Deliberate practice (sometimes called ‘rehearsal’) keeps the information in our short-term memory long enough for it to move to long-term memory, Once it is in long-term memory, it can be built upon to create more and more complex associations (Baddeley, 2002). Most researchers agree that there are forms of Short-Term Memory (STM) for different modalities, such as visual STM, auditory STM and motor STM, For example, Baddeley (1992; 1996; 2002) suggests that short-term memory is a dynamic place where sounds and images are turned into verbal and pictorial models.

STM is also thought to have a “central executive” that manages the information it is holding. This central executive also controls our awareness of that information (Baddeley, 2002). The implication for teachers is that they should present material in multiple modalities, If a child who is learning to read hears a word, sees the word and a picture of the word, there will be more learning.

The child can get the visual information from the visual STM and additional auditory information in the auditory STM. These two sensory sources of information supplement and complement one another (Liao, 2014). However, teachers must be careful not to have too much extraneous information in the classroom.

What is an example of a carry over effect in psychology?

What is an example of carryover effect? Carryover effects occur when the effects of receiving one treatment impact participants in subsequent conditions. For example, receiving a memory test in one condition can make participants expect memory tests in following conditions.

How might a researcher reduce practice effects in a study?

How to Minimize Carryover Effects – There are several ways to minimize carryover effects in an experiment, including: 1. Give participants time to warm up. One way to prevent practice effects is to give participants time to warm up with the task to prevent them from getting better at the task during the actual experiment.2.

Make a task shorter. One way to prevent fatigue effects is to make a task shorter or less intense to perform. This makes it less likely that the participants will get fatigued and tired as they perform more and more tasks.3. Use counterbalancing. Counterbalancing is when researchers assign experimental treatments in different orders to different participants.

For example, researchers might have 10 participants use three techniques in the order of 123, another 10 participants use the techniques in order of 213, another 10 participants use the techniques in order of 312, and so on. By using each order the same number of times, we can “counterbalance” any order effects. The downside of this method is that it can be too time-consuming or costly to actually implement every order an equal number of times.

What is the practice effect in experimental design?

The practice effect is of particular concern in experimentation involving within-subjects designs, as participants’ performance on the variable of interest may improve simply from repeating the activity rather than from any study manipulation imposed by the researcher.

What is the practice effect in a repeated measures design?

I. Key Points – Why Researchers Use Repeated Measures Designs Researchers choose to use a repeated measures design in order to (1) conduct an experiment when few participants are available, (2) conduct the experiment more efficiently, (3) increase the sensitivity of the experiment, and (4) study changes in participants’ behavior over time.

• The Role of Practice Effects in Repeated Measures Designs Repeated measures designs cannot be confounded by individual differences variables because the same individuals participate in each condition (level) of the independent variable.
• Participants’ performance in repeated measures designs may change across conditions simply because of repeated testing (not because of the independent variable); these changes are called practice effects.

Practice effects may threaten the internal validity of a repeated measures experiment when the different conditions of the independent variable are presented in the same order to all participants. The two types of repeated measures designs, complete and incomplete, differ in the specific ways they control for practice effects.

Balancing Practice Effects in the Complete Design Practice effects are balanced in complete designs within each participant using block randomization or ABBA counterbalancing. In block randomization, all of the conditions of the experiment (a block) are randomly ordered each time they are presented. In ABBA counterbalancing, a random sequence of all conditions is presented, followed by the opposite of the sequence. Block randomization is preferred over ABBA counterbalancing when practice effects are not linear, or when participants’ performance can be affected by anticipation effects. Balancing Practice Effects in the Incomplete Design Practice effects are balanced across subjects in the incomplete design rather than for each subject, as in the complete design. The rule for balancing practice effects in the incomplete design is that each condition of the experiment must be presented in each ordinal position (first, second, etc.) equally often. The best method for balancing practice effects in the incomplete design with four or fewer conditions is to use all possible orders of the conditions. Two methods for selecting specific orders to use in an incomplete design are the Latin Square and random starting order with rotation. Whether using all possible orders or selected orders, participants should be randomly assigned to the different sequences.

Data Analysis of Repeated Measures Designs

Describing the Results Data analysis for a complete design begins with computing a summary score (e.g., mean, median) for each participant. Descriptive statistics are used to summarize performance across all participants for each condition of the independent variable. Confirming What the Results Reveal The general procedures and logic for null hypothesis testing and for confidence intervals for repeated measures designs are similar to those used for random groups designs.

The Problem of Differential Transfer Differential transfer occurs when the effects of one condition persist and influence performance in subsequent conditions. Variables that may lead to differential transfer should be tested using a random groups design because differential transfer threatens the internal validity of repeated measures designs.

Is fatigue a cognitive effect?

1. Introduction – Mental fatigue, which has subjective, behavioral and physiological manifestations, is a psychobiological state induced by prolonged periods of demanding cognitive activity, From a subjective standpoint, mental fatigue induces increased feelings of tiredness, lack of energy, decreased motivation, and alertness,

From a behavioral point of view, mental fatigue has been shown to negatively influence performance and cognitive functioning, Physiologically speaking, mental fatigue may alter brain activity, Most previous studies that have examined the effects of mental fatigue on physical performance have revealed that mental fatigue does not affect maximal strength, power, and anaerobic work capacity,

Only one study reported a decreased leg extension maximal voluntary contraction (796 ± 150 N to 741 ± 137 N) after a 100 min mentally fatiguing task, In contrast, mental fatigue has been consistently shown to decrease endurance performance, as assessed using different tests such as time-clamped self-paced running/cycling protocols and the Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test (decreased time to exhaustion, lowered self-selected power output/velocity, or increased completion time ).

Nevertheless, these investigations have highlighted the negative effect of mental fatigue in adult team-sport athletes. It has been shown that younger adults were more affected by mental fatigue tasks than older adults, This difference is nicely mirrored in behavioral, neurophysiological and psychological data.

More specifically, younger adult/adolescent participants showed markedly decreased accuracy and motivation, and increased error rates and alpha activity in performing mental fatigue tasks, However, to date, no study has evaluated the effects of mental fatigue on endurance performance in adolescent individual sports participants, in order to better understand whether mental fatigue-related responses in older adults translate to younger adults.

• For instance, fatigue imposes a clinically relevant burden among athletes.
• From a clinical standpoint, the present article may allow sports practitioners and coaches to design and adopt ad hoc interventions to properly prevent or manage mental fatigue in this particular population.
• Evidence reveals that endurance sport performance relies on a complex inter-play of physiological and biomechanical factors,

Cardiovascular endurance, which can be defined as “the entire body’s ability to sustain prolonged, dynamic exercise using large muscle groups” (, p.223), is one of the major limiting factors in endurance performance. Indeed, classical measures, such as maximal oxygen uptake (VO 2 max), have been traditionally used in the laboratory or in the field to predict the performance potential of runners,

• Additionally to the physiological parameters, mental factors would seem to affect cardiovascular endurance performance during running.
• Previously, McCormick et al.
• Suggested six psychological determinants of endurance performance, namely motivators, mental fatigue, priming interventions, experimenter effects, emotion suppression, and efficacy strength.

Typically, mental fatigue has been shown to undermine endurance performance, particularly time to exhaustion, running times in a 3 km time trial, and performance times in a 5 km running time trial, when compared with control conditions in adult athletes.

1. No research, however, has examined the influence of mental fatigue on aerobic performance, assessed using the 20 m multistage fitness test (MSFT), in adolescent active endurance athletes.
2. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of mental fatigue on cognitive and aerobic performance, assessed using the MSFT and d2 test, respectively, in adolescent active endurance athletes.

Specifically, we hypothesized that a 30 min Stroop task leading to mental fatigue would (a) reduce estimated selective attention and estimated VO 2 max performance and (b) increase subjective ratings of mental fatigue and perceived exertion.

What is the fatigue effect in psychology?

A decline in performance on a prolonged or demanding research task that is generally attributed to the participant becoming tired or bored with the task.

How long does practice effect last?

Discussion – In the present study, we provide for the first time comprehensive data on clinically relevant practice effects in healthy well-performing subjects over a 1-year period of frequent repetitive testing across 6 distinct cognitive domains. During the initial phase of high-frequency testing for 3 months, strong practice effects occur early on, most prominent in executive functions and learning/memory.

• After 3 months and upon reduced testing frequency, a stabilization/plateau of the acquired cognitive level until study end is observed.
• Age, intellectual capacity, personality features, or psychopathological scores have no consistent influence on the course of cognitive performance.
• Generally, comparisons between the present and previous studies are confounded by different designs, including the use of diverse cognitive tests, fewer repetitions, and/or varying intertest intervals.

The finding that strongest changes in performance occur from baseline to the second testing, however, complies well with a number of similar results on distribution of practice effects, The extent of practice effects observed here even exceeds effect sizes described by Hausknecht et al ( d = 0.26) or Bird et al, using comparable intervals.

• In contrast to previous studies, showing a similar magnitude of practice effects short-term, our longitudinal design addresses particular needs of neuroprotective/neuroregenerative treatment trials, including both, a practice and a retention phase.
• Just McCaffrey et al had a somewhat related long-term design, but only 4 sessions in total (baseline, week 2, months 3 and 6), with the last testing at month 6, and a much shorter test battery.

The essential findings of this study are in agreement with the respective parts of the present work. Another study worth mentioning here, provided useful information about practice-dependent test selection to build on, but used only a high-frequency testing schedule (20 sessions in 4 weeks) without long-term follow-up and without change in testing frequency,

• Regarding the different cognitive domains, executive functions showed highest score increases over time, followed by learning and memory.
• For executive functions, results of other studies are contradictory ], ranging from no over small to strong practice effects.
• The strong practice effects in almost all executive functions found here are most likely the result of a higher repetition rate (as compared to ) or the use of less alternate forms (as compared to ).

In line with our findings, there is wide agreement that memory functions benefit most from practice and are evident even when alternate test forms are applied, Since parallel forms were also administered in the present study, and the respective tests were reduced to 4 repetitions, test sophistication as well as improvement of the underlying functions rather than simple recall effects may have contributed to improved performance.

On the basis of single test characteristics and results over time, no prediction can be made regarding the impact of repetitive testing. Practice effects seem to be unrelated to task complexity or modality. On the other hand, the present work provides more than test-specific information: cognitive domains, assessed with an extensive test battery, covering each domain by several tests, revealed very homogenous effect sizes within one domain, i.e.

similar practice effects irrespective of the test used, pointing to genuine change in the underlying target domain (transfer effects). Only within the attention domain, highly varying effect sizes of individual tests may indicate respective test specificity, e.g.

in our study TAP Visual Scanning displayed largest practice effects whereas RBANS Digit Span revealed no effects. In the overall picture of transfer effects, the few tests with ceiling effects did not play a role in this respect. Logically, our findings on practice effects raise the question whether after 3 months of regular practice the maximally possible improvement is already achieved or whether continued practice would lead to an even more enhanced performance.

Even though this was not the objective of the present study, it would be interesting to investigate how many additional sessions within the high-frequency period are required until the individual upper performance limit is reached. Although the majority of tests showed considerable practice effects, at least one test in most of the cognitive domains was found resistant to practice.

Again, task complexity does not seem to be the underlying factor explaining resistance. For more ‘deficit-oriented’ subtests like RBANS List Recognition, Lines and Figure Copy, ceiling effects (expected especially in high IQ subjects) did not allow further improvement of test scores. For most other tests this was not the case since the majority of subjects, despite high IQ, did not score at above-average.

Nevertheless, the high IQ level of our sample may have contributed to the observed strong practice effects as reported in studies showing that high IQ subjects benefit more from prior test exposure (‘the rich get richer’ ). This greater benefit of high IQ, however, is still equivocal as is a potential influence of age,

In fact, neither age nor IQ, applied as covariates, revealed a clear effect in the present work. Also other covariates, i.e. personality and psychopathology ratings, failed to show any appreciable impact on learning curves. The most plausible explanation would be the fact that healthy volunteers scored in a very restricted ‘normal’ range in these categories.

Such restricted range holds similarly true for IQ. The aim of the present study, apart from long-term analysis of practice effects, was to provide recommendations for an ‘ideal’ neuropsychological test battery suitable for serial testing in research and routine.

As obvious from our results, two major points have to be considered in this recommendation: test selection and timing. Tests of first choice are those that are essentially resistant to practice: TAP Alertness or RBANS Digit Span for attention; TAP Working Memory for executive functions; MacQuarrie Dotting for motor functions; RBANS Semantic Fluency for language.

For learning and memory, no practice-resistant valid test could be identified. Therefore, for evaluation of this particular domain, a ‘dual baseline’ approach is suggested to partly cut off early practice effects: If the most prominent improvement occurs from first to second assessment, the second may serve as baseline for subsequent assessments.

1. For the domain learning and memory, this applies to RBANS Figure Recall, List Recall and List Learning.
2. As eventual alternatives for the above listed domain-specific, practice-resistant tests, the dual baseline approach may be used for TMT A, RBANS Coding (attention), WCST-64, WMS-III Letter Number Sequencing, RWT phonemic verbal fluency (executive functions) and MacQuarrie Tapping (motor functions).

Of all the explored cognitive domains, only for visuospatial functions a valid test recommendation cannot be made at this point. The selection of tests for a neuropsychological battery is often a matter of compromises and limitations. Due to time restrictions and fatiguing effects, it is impossible to completely cover all relevant cognitive domains with all their facets in one session.

For instance, in this comprehensive test battery, data on inhibition control or interference resolution as important aspects of executive function had to be omitted due to these restrictions. On the other hand, some deficit-oriented tests, essential for clinical studies, were selected that ultimately displayed ceiling effects in the healthy sample.

Especially for the domains visuospatial functions and language, not only more tests but also more suitable tests have to be identified and investigated longitudinally. In addition to our recommendations for an optimal, practice-resistant test battery, also our data of tests with strongest practice effects are useful for future applications.

What is the practice effect in reliability?

Introduction – Cognitive impairment is one of the core symptoms of schizophrenia and is associated with poor functional outcome ( Bora, 2015; Green et al., 2004). Sustained attention is a fundamental cognitive function involved in many daily activities such as reading, writing, or working for extended periods of time.

Deficits in sustained attention are closely associated with the functional outcomes of patients with schizophrenia ( Barr, 2001; Luck & Gold, 2008; Rajji, Miranda, & Mulsant, 2014). To efficiently manage patients’ deficits in sustained attention, clinicians have to administer reliable and valid assessments for such impairments.

A practice effect, which frequently occurs in cognitive assessments, can be defined as an improvement in test performance due to repeated exposures to test materials ( Duff et al., 2007). A practice effect accumulates in the early stage of assessments, after which the practice effect becomes stable and reaches a plateau ( Chiu et al., 2014; Tang et al., 2018).

The practice effect of a cognitive measure is largely influenced by the number of assessments and is most pronounced in the first three or four assessments ( Chiu et al., 2014; Eonta et al., 2011). Moreover, the practice effect, as expected, can be affected by the length of the retest period in cognition assessments ( Falleti, Maruff, Collie, & Darby, 2006).

Estimating the practice effect of a test can be helpful for patients, clinicians, and researchers to interpret test results of repeated assessments. Test–retest reliability can be defined as the extent to which a measurement is consistent and free of random measurement error ( Portney & Watkins, 2009).

Random measurement error refers to the fluctuation in scores of repeated assessments, which arises due to unpredictable factors ( Portney & Watkins, 2009). To estimate the amount of random measurement error of a measure, the standard error of measurement (SEM) or minimal detectable change (MDC, which can be linearly transformed from SEM) is commonly used ( Atkinson & Nevill, 1998; Beckerman et al., 2001; Flansbjer, Holmbäck, Downham, & Lexell, 2005; Haley & Fragala-Pinkham, 2006).

Specifically, the SEM can be used to present the precision of individual scores ( Weir, 2005). The MDC is the smallest threshold of change scores that is detectable and beyond random error at a certain level of confidence (usually 95%) ( Schreuders et al., 2003).

• To understand how much of a measured change in score is attributable to measurement error and how much represents a true condition, examining the test–retest reliability of the measure is essential.
• A measure of sustained attention should have low practice effects, sufficient test–retest agreement and small random measurement error for repeated use over time.

The CPT-IP is a neuropsychological measure originally developed to assess sustained attention and vigilance ( Cornblatt, Risch, Faris, Friedman, & Erlenmeyer-Kimling, 1988). The CPT-IP is highly recommended and included in the Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB) as a measure of vigilance/attention for patients with schizophrenia in clinical trials ( Cornblatt et al., 1988).

1. The CPT-IP prompts an examinee to respond to the second stimulus in any pair of identical stimuli.
2. The stimuli are composed of three conditions (2-digit, 3-digit, and 4-digit Arabic numerals), and each condition can be calculated as an index (i.e., “2-digit score,” “3-digit score,” and “4-digit score”).

In addition, the three indices (scores) can be calculated as the fourth index: “total score.” The advantages of the CPT-IP are that it does not have cultural barriers (using Arabic numerals as test stimuli) and the evaluation time is short (each condition lasting approximately 3 min).

1. Therefore, the CPT-IP has great potential for assessing sustained attention in patients with schizophrenia.
2. Studies have shown that the total score of the CPT-IP has a trivial practice effect (Cohen’s d = 0.09–0.17) and good test–retest reliability (intra-class correlation coefficient = 0.78–0.84) at a 4-week retest interval ( Georgiades et al., 2017; Keefe et al., 2011; Nuechterlein et al., 2004).

For the 2-digit, 3-digit, and 4-digit scores, good test–retest reliability (ICC = 0.73, 0.80, and 0.80, respectively) at a 5-week retest interval and a small practice effect were found ( Kahn et al., 2012). However, previous examinations of the practice effect and test–retest have two limitations.

1. First, no information exists on the practice effects and test–retest reliability of the CPT-IP for shorter retest intervals.
2. In general, shorter intervals between test and retest tend to produce a larger practice effect ( Falleti et al., 2006).
3. Furthermore, such results can be useful for clinical trials with short retest intervals to exclude the impact of practice effects ( Kahn et al., 2012).

Second, in previous studies, patients were assessed with the CPT-IP only twice ( Georgiades et al., 2017; Keefe et al., 2011; Nuechterlein et al., 2004), so the trends of the practice effects and test–retest reliability over several assessments (e.g., four assessments) are unknown.

What is an example of a practice effect in research?

What Are Practice Effects? – In an experiment looking at the impact of sleep deprivation on driving ability, for example, students might take a driving test at the beginning of the experiment and again at the end of the experiment. Participating in the first task may influence how well students do on the second task.

Such effects are often a concern in experiments that use a within-subjects design. Any type of repeated measure design is susceptible to possible practice effects. Practice effects can also impact test performance on standardized testing and psychological assessments. Taking the same test a second time soon may lead to better scores or altered performance.

These effects do not always lead to improvements, however. Sometimes practice effects can help future performance, but they can also hinder subsequent performance on experimental tasks or tests.

What is the practice effect in a repeated measures design?

I. Key Points – Why Researchers Use Repeated Measures Designs Researchers choose to use a repeated measures design in order to (1) conduct an experiment when few participants are available, (2) conduct the experiment more efficiently, (3) increase the sensitivity of the experiment, and (4) study changes in participants’ behavior over time.

1. The Role of Practice Effects in Repeated Measures Designs Repeated measures designs cannot be confounded by individual differences variables because the same individuals participate in each condition (level) of the independent variable.
2. Participants’ performance in repeated measures designs may change across conditions simply because of repeated testing (not because of the independent variable); these changes are called practice effects.

Practice effects may threaten the internal validity of a repeated measures experiment when the different conditions of the independent variable are presented in the same order to all participants. The two types of repeated measures designs, complete and incomplete, differ in the specific ways they control for practice effects.

Balancing Practice Effects in the Complete Design Practice effects are balanced in complete designs within each participant using block randomization or ABBA counterbalancing. In block randomization, all of the conditions of the experiment (a block) are randomly ordered each time they are presented. In ABBA counterbalancing, a random sequence of all conditions is presented, followed by the opposite of the sequence. Block randomization is preferred over ABBA counterbalancing when practice effects are not linear, or when participants’ performance can be affected by anticipation effects. Balancing Practice Effects in the Incomplete Design Practice effects are balanced across subjects in the incomplete design rather than for each subject, as in the complete design. The rule for balancing practice effects in the incomplete design is that each condition of the experiment must be presented in each ordinal position (first, second, etc.) equally often. The best method for balancing practice effects in the incomplete design with four or fewer conditions is to use all possible orders of the conditions. Two methods for selecting specific orders to use in an incomplete design are the Latin Square and random starting order with rotation. Whether using all possible orders or selected orders, participants should be randomly assigned to the different sequences.

Data Analysis of Repeated Measures Designs

Describing the Results Data analysis for a complete design begins with computing a summary score (e.g., mean, median) for each participant. Descriptive statistics are used to summarize performance across all participants for each condition of the independent variable. Confirming What the Results Reveal The general procedures and logic for null hypothesis testing and for confidence intervals for repeated measures designs are similar to those used for random groups designs.

The Problem of Differential Transfer Differential transfer occurs when the effects of one condition persist and influence performance in subsequent conditions. Variables that may lead to differential transfer should be tested using a random groups design because differential transfer threatens the internal validity of repeated measures designs.

What does practice mean in research?

16 October 2019 Practice-research is a methodology in which knowledge is gained via the doing of something, rather than reading about it (desk-research), or inquiring into what other people know about that thing (i.e., interviews, surveys, etc.) or other more traditional models of research such as case studies and ethnographies.

• Generally, it is spoken about within a creative contexts but practice-research is present in most fields, including healthcare, business, and science.
• In the past, there has been a dichotomy between practice-based and practice-led research.
• Practice-based research provides knowledge through doing practice.

For example: I might try to sing Wagner on a tightrope in order to find the edges of my performance abilities when combining these distinct practices. The knowledge that I would gain from this would be inherently embodied and while “the significance and context of the claims described in words, a full understanding can only be obtained with direct reference to those outcomes.” You’d need to have seen it – or done it – to understand it.

Practice-led research, on the other hand, provides knowledge about practice, rather than what can be learned by doing it. It has “operational significance for that practice. The main focus of the research is to advance knowledge about practice, or to advance knowledge within practice.” In other words, a practice-led inquiry about Wagner on a tightrope would focus upon the practice of tightrope walking and performing Opera itself, rather than what I learned in doing that silly thing.

These terms are quite nuanced, and are perhaps more useful within the minutia of research methodologies than they are for a wider public – as such, there has recently been a move to speak of both these approaches simply as “practice research.” And, while it may seem to some wholly rational that knowledge can be gained in the doing, there is resistance from other more traditional arenas that critique the fact that this knowledge isn’t systematic, nor repeatable: it is different every time someone does it; its lacks rigour and so it is hard to know what is ‘true’ and what is just experience: Where – and what – is the evidence of practice research? Fundamentally, this is an epistemological division between those who understand the world via rational, scientific sense (which suggests that to develop new knowledge things can/should be quantified) and those that understand that the world is built of individualistic experiences (which are relational and constantly changing to form meaning and new possibility).

While these perspectives are different (perhaps oppositional?), it is important to remember that both these approaches produce knowledge, albeit knowledge of different kinds. As such, they should not be set at odds, but rather be understood as different strands of the same Gordian Knot. As Sullivan (2013) suggests: “Artists emphasise the role of the imaginative intellect in creating, criticising, and constructing knowledge that is not only new but also has the capacity to transform human understanding.” In this way, this practice research within creative contexts aim to transform human understanding.

This is why practice-research is important to others who do not do this work: it gives unique insights into the nature of the world. For example, an artist might work with a community to explore how they are responding to climate change, In this instance, the artist is not solving climate change, nor finding solutions, but rather creatively asking questions to the community that invite them rethink their relationship to land, production, the environment, tourism etc.

In another example of mine, I undertook a ridiculously long walk between two sites of art that aimed to ask what the relationship between these two places was, or could be. It is a project that ultimately failed in its original intention, but still was able to ask difficult and important questions about walking as an artistic practice and insights into how long distance walking can challenge assumptions of migration, borders and boundaries.

Practice research is therefore not useful in the sense of providing universal facts, but rather, in giving insights into the individualised, unique, connected and subjective world in which we live. It can reveal and expose how complicated the world is, rather than provide inalienable, simplistic truths.

• This approach, I would argue, is more important in todays world with its political binaries and emphasis on rational knowledge.
• While I am neither a tightrope walker nor particularly keen on Wagner, such a silly piece of research would provide useful reflections about the state of opera today, and perhaps challenge our understanding of how opera should be experienced, which in turn, might give new insights and meaning about how others might rethink and redo traditional operatic productions.

It might not change the world in any significant way, but at least it gives us some ways to complicate how we think about it. Anthony Schrag CCCMS (Centre for Communication, Cultural and Media Studies) Practice Based Research Cluster: Finding and Understanding Creative Knowledge