Claims

Test-retest correlations of memory span are low, questioning the validity of a single memory span test

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r1 · q3
Currency · newest study 1918 · 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.

q3 i? Across 45 inter-trial correlations for 97 children tested on ten days, the average coefficient was 0.37 for Consecutive Series scores and 0.54 for Maximum Series scores, with only two exceeding 0.70. → Mitchell 1918

Evidence

Mitchell 1918

Mitchell, David. (1918). Variability in Memory Span. The Journal of Educational Psychology. https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Variability+in+Memory+Span%22+Mitchell+1918

q3 · i? · associational · r1

Correlational analysis of the ten-day study: 45 coefficients computed among trials for 97 children. The article reports "The average is 0.37" for Consecutive Series and "The average coefficient of correlation for the "Maximum Series" score is 0.54." No standardized effect size is printed for this finding.

"The average is 0.37. The average coefficient of correlation for the "Maximum Series" score is 0.54. Thirty-three come between 0.50. and 0.69; only two are greater than 0.70."

Discussion

Page metadata
Field Value
type claim
id low-memory-span-retest-correlations
title Test-retest correlations of memory span are low, questioning the validity of a single memory span test
description Test-retest correlations of memory span are low, questioning the validity of a single memory span test
status review
evidence_strength moderate
newest_evidence 1918
generated by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-23
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources 1 — mitchell-1918

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