In one class of 13-year-old boys, memory scores were kept to a steady rank order by repeated practice (successive tests correlating +.87 to +.90) before fatigue testing began¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causalr1·q2
Currency · newest study 1912 · checked against its sources 2026-10-24 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · 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.
q2 i? Successive preliminary memory tests showed high positive correlations (r = +.901, +.874, +.884), indicating that practice had stabilized individual positions before fatigue tests began. → Winch 1912
Evidence¶
Winch 1912¶
Winch, W. H. (1912). Mental fatigue in day school children as measured by immediate memory: Part I. Journal of Educational Psychology, 3(1), 18–28. doi:10.1037/h0070728
q2 · i? · causal · r1
Analysis of preliminary test results from the whole Standard VI class. The fifth test correlated with the sixth at "r" was found to be + .901, and sixth with seventh at + .874, seventh with eighth at + .884, with probable errors approximating .02.
"But the fifth preliminary test was correlated with the sixth. "Working from the individual cases by the Pearson product-moment formula "r" was found to be + .901. with a "probable error" of .02."
Discussion¶
The correlations show only that the class's rank order had settled after five preliminary tests; the study did not compare fatigue testing with and without this practice phase, so it does not show that the practice made later fatigue measurements more valid. Winch reports it as a methodological safeguard.
Related Claims¶
- Late-afternoon memory work shows relative inefficiency of about 5-6 per cent compared with early-morning work in 13-year-old boys — related
- Improvement by practice continues in both morning and afternoon groups, but the morning group improves faster across weeks — related
- Test-retest correlations of memory span are low, questioning the validity of a single memory span test — related
- Across repeated digit tests pupils improved with practice, with large uniform increases attributed to unconscious memory of the previous day's digits, and no fatigue effect on recall was found — related
- Psychological methods of fatigue measurement afford useful average values and reliable information about the course and effect of fatigue (Offner) — related
- Tests B and C correlate 0.901 when given to the same pupils in grades III to VIII — related
- During the final fatigue test, time per problem rose gradually, then markedly, with no obvious correlation between time and accuracy — related
- The equal-group tests showed high test-retest and between-group correlations, supporting the reliability of the arithmetical-reasoning marking method. — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
steady-practice-before-fatigue-tests |
title |
In one class of 13-year-old boys, memory scores were kept to a steady rank order by repeated practice (successive tests correlating +.87 to +.90) before fatigue testing began |
description |
In one class of 13-year-old boys, memory scores were kept to a steady rank order by repeated practice (successive tests correlating +.87 to +.90) before fatigue testing began |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
1912 |
source_checked |
2026-10-24 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-23 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — winch-1912 |
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