Claims

Wording of test directions changed children's performance, with 'largest' failing and 'biggest' succeeding for primary-grade children

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · design r2 · q1
Currency · newest study 1917 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims

Reading the evidence codes

q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.

This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.

q1 i? When the direction said "Make a cross in the LARGEST square," children crossed the smallest square as often as the largest, but after rewording to "BIGGEST square" the test succeeded for that age group. → Lowell 1917

Evidence

Lowell 1917

Lowell, Frances. (1917). A Preliminary Report of Some Group Tests of General Intelligence. The Journal of Educational Psychology. https://psycnet.apa.org/journals/edu

q1 · i? · design · r2

Qualitative tryout observation during test selection: the original 'largest' wording produced puzzling errors; probing revealed a child did not know what 'largest' meant, and the wording was changed to 'biggest', after which "the success of the test was assured."

"The result was puzzling, for the children crossed the smallest square as often as they did the largest."

Discussion

Page metadata
Field Value
type claim
id direction-wording-largest-versus-biggest
title Wording of test directions changed children's performance, with 'largest' failing and 'biggest' succeeding for primary-grade children
description Wording of test directions changed children's performance, with 'largest' failing and 'biggest' succeeding for primary-grade children
status review
evidence_strength weak
newest_evidence 1917
generated by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-23
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources 1 — lowell-1917

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