The Textbook and the Accompanying 796 Questions Form an Integrated Instructional System
User Manual
The textbook and the accompanying 796 questions form an integrated instructional system. The questions are not primarily an assessment methodology but an instructional methodology. It has long been known that distributed questioning is more effective than repeated study in creating long-term retention of a text (Glass & Sinha, 2013). To make use of this effect, the questions have been integrated with the text and these questions have been specifically shown in a within-student, within-question counter-balanced experimental design to generate a level of performance of 90% correct on the final exam when they are distributed as described below (Glass, 2009).
The 796 questions are organized into 217 question sets of from one to seven questions. Most question sets include four or more questions. All the questions in a question set may be answered by an inference from a common fact statement. Hence, being able to infer the correct answer to one question in the set logically implies being able to correctly answer all of the questions in the set.
Each question has a five or six digit number that indicates its question set. The first digit or pair of digits indicates the chapter the question queries. So, for five-digit question numbers, the first digit, 1 – 9, corresponds to the chapter, from 1 through 9, whose content the question queries. For six-digit question numbers, the first two digits, 10 – 15, correspond to the chapter, from 10 to 15, whose content the question queries. The next two digits 01 – 40, designate the question set of which the question is a member. Question sets are numbered consecutively for each chapter. Chapter 9 is associated with the smallest number of question sets, 5, and Chapter 10 is associated with the largest number of question sets, 40. The final two digits indicate the question’s number, 0 1 – 07, within the set. However, if the question is the only member of its set then the question number is 00.
Passages in the textbook provide explicit answers for nearly all of the question sets and the feedback associated with these questions is drawn from these passages. In addition, for Chapters 1 – 13, there are one or two question sets that do not have explicit answers in the text. These are the highest numbered question sets in the chapter. They do not have a feedback statement providing a rationale for the answer associated with them.
When I teach cognition using this text, the course is divided into three five-week units terminating in a unit exam that covers the material presented during the previous month. Each lecture is preceded by a reading assignment in the textbook on the topic covered in the lecture.
Each question on the unit exam is drawn from a question set and three other questions from the set are integrated into instruction.
Consider four questions from set q of chapter c. Suppose that question cq04 is an exam question. Two days before the lecture, question cq01 is made available online. Students are told to first do the reading assignment (which cq01 queries) and then answer the online questions in preparation for the lecture. During the lecture, cq02 is presented and students answer using a personal response system (clickers, laptops, or cell phones). A week after the lecture, cq03 is presented online. Responses are always followed by feedback. For online questions this feedback is drawn from the textbook. For the classroom questions the feedback is provided by the instructor.
Unsurprisingly, the probability of a correct response increases with each successive question in the set and usually exceeds 80% on the unit exam and 90% on the final exam. Consequently, most students do well in the course despite the challenging material in the textbook. Most reviewers of its chapters commended their thoroughness but stated that they were too difficult for the reviewer’s students. However, it is likely that if they integrated the questions provided here with their instruction, their students’ performance would be equal to mine.
Interspersing questions throughout a lecture is a challenging activity for the instructor. Each year I get better at using the question to advance the discussion of the topic rather than interrupt it. One surprise is how poorly students sometimes perform on a classroom question to which I presented the answer on the immediately preceding slide. This humbling experience has repeatedly revealed that my lectures were not as engaging or as informative as I thought they were.
However, students apparently do learn from their mistakes because the level of classroom performance is not a predictor of exam performance. It is the level of participation that is a predictor of exam performance, regardless of whether the classroom questions are answered correctly or incorrectly. So distributed questioning unequivocally increases exam performance.
Distributed questioning is still a new instructional methodology and there is still much to learn about it. Every year I perform a within-student, within-question experiment to test a different aspect of it. I would like to invite any instructor who is interested to participate in such an experiment. No one is more qualified to advance the efficacy of instruction through systematic experimental research than cognitive psychologists! So let us collaborate in applying advances in cognitive neuroscience to improve instruction!
Glass, A. L. (2009). The effect of distributed questioning with varied examples on exam performance on inference questions. Educational Psychology 29, 831 – 848.
Glass, A. L. & Sinha, N. (2013). Multiple-Choice Questioning Is an Efficient Instructional Methodology That May Be Widely Implemented in Academic Courses to Improve Exam Performance. Current Directions in Psychological Science 22, 471 – 477. doi: 10.1177/0963721413495870
Listed below are the consecutively number question sets in each chapter. The question set or sets on the second row are the ones whose questions do not provide feedback containing a passage from the chapter providing the answer.
Chapter 1
10101 - 10506
10600
Chapter 2
20101 – 21005
21100
Chapter 3
30101 – 31704
31800 – 31900
Chapter 4
40101 – 40900
41001 - 41005
Chapter 5
50101 – 51304
51401 – 51405
Chapter 6
60101 – 61205
61301 – 61302
Chapter 7
70101 – 71602
71701 - 71702
Chapter 8
80101 – 81005
81101 – 81105
Chapter 9
90101 – 90404
90501 – 90504
Chapter 10
100101 – 103705
103800 – 104005
Chapter 11
110100 – 111505
111601 – 111700
Chapter 12
120101 – 121002
121100
Chapter 13
130101 – 132203
132301 - 132603
Chapter 14
140101 – 140904
Chapter 15
150101 – 150804
10101. Which causes long-term habituation or sensitization?
A. A change in the number of pre-synaptic terminals
B. A change in the number of active pre-synaptic terminals
C. A change in the number of post-synaptic receptors
D. The number of and interval between stimulus presentations
*E. All of the above
10102. Which causes long-term habituation or sensitization?
A. The amount of neurotransmitter released into the synapse by each terminal
*B. A change in the number of active pre-synaptic terminals
C. The number of new neurons added to the circuit
D. A change in the permeability of the neuron membrane
E. All of the above
10103. Long-term sensitization is the result of…
*A. An increase in the number of pre-synaptic terminals
B. An increase in the amount of neurotransmitter released into the synapse by each terminal
C. An increase in the number of new neurons added to the circuit
D. An increase in the permeability of the neuron membrane
E. All of the above
10104. Which causes long-term habituation?
A. An increase in the number of post-synaptic receptors
B. A decrease in the mylenation of the axon
*C. A decrease in the number of pre-synaptic terminals
D. An increase in the number of active pre-synaptic terminals
E. An increase in the number of pre-synaptic receptors
10201. A reflex…Is never a complex response
A. Is learned during gestation
*C. May disappear shortly after birth
D. Is never an endocrine response
E. Is always initiated by the cortex
10202. An unconditioned reflex…
A. Is always present from birth to death
B. Is learned during gestation
C. Is learned shortly after birth
D. Is always a simple response
*E. May move a body part towards a stimulus
10203. An unconditioned reflex…
A. Is learned during gestation
B. Is learned shortly after birth
*C. May involve a chemical rather than a motor response
D. Is always a simple response
E. Is present from birth to death
10204. An unconditioned reflex…
A. Is always initiated by the amygdala
B. Always moves a body part away from a stimulus.
*C. May disappear shortly after birth
D. Cannot be extended to a new a stimulus
E. Is always a simple response
10205. An unconditioned reflex…
A. Is learned during gestation
B. Is learned shortly after birth
*C. May disappear shortly after birth
D. Is always a simple response
E. Is made in response to many different stimuli
10301. What is true about conditioning?
A. Any stimulus may be associated with any response
B. Only new visual stimuli may be associated with unconditioned responses
C. Only motor responses may be associated with new stimuli
*D. Only specific stimuli, determined by the organization of the nervous system, may become associated with a specific response
E. Only non-motor responses may be associated with new stimuli
10302. What is true about conditioning?
*A. The organization of the nervous system determines which stimuli may become associated with a specific response
B. Conditioning always requires dozens of trials
C. Only motor responses may be associated with auditory stimuli
D. Only non-visual stimuli may be associated with unconditioned responses
E. A new stimulus must be associated with the unconditioned response both with and without the unconditioned stimulus present
10303. When a novel stimulus occurs along with an unconditioned stimulus and at no other time, it will come to elicit the unconditioned response
A. After two pairings
*B. If an inter-neuron connects the novel stimulus with the unconditioned reflex in the nervous system
C. After at least sixteen pairs
D. After four pairings
E. If the novel stimulus is olfactory
10304. When can conditioning occur?
A. When a contingent relation exists between any stimulus and any response
*B. When an interneuron connects the representation of a CS with a US – UR pathway
C. When an interneuron connects the representation of a CS with a UR
D. When any familiar auditory signal occurs often before any response is elicited
E. When any familiar visual signal occurs often before any response is elicited
10401. What is true about delay versus trace conditioning?
A. The CS and US overlap in delay conditioning
B. The CS and US do not overlap in trace conditioning
C. The striatum is functional for delay conditioning
D. The hippocampus is necessary for trace conditioning
*E. All of the above
10402. Which is a difference between delay and trace conditioning?
A. In delay conditioning, there is a delay between the CS and the US
B. Delay conditioning requires a functional hippocampus
*C. In trace conditioning, there is a delay between the CS and the US
D. Trace conditioning does not require a functional hippocampus
E. If trace conditioning is impaired then delay conditioning must be impaired
10403. Which is true about delay versus trace conditioning?
*A. In delay conditioning, there is no delay between the CS and the US
B. In trace conditioning, there is no delay between the CS and the US
C. Delay conditioning occurs in the cortex
D. Trace conditioning occurs in the midbrain, brain stem, and spinal corD.
E. At some interval after training, delay conditioning becomes trace conditioning
10404. What is true about the differences between delay versus trace conditioning?
A. Trace conditioning occurs for the memory of the training event several weeks after training
B. In delay conditioning, there is a delay between the CS and UCS
C. In trace conditioning, there is no delay between the CS and the UCS
*D. Trace conditioning requires a functional hippocampus
E. Delay conditioning only occurs in the neocortex
10405. What is true about the hippocampus?
*A. The hippocampus is required for trace conditioning, in which there is a delay between the CS and US
B. The hippocampus is required for delay conditioning, which there is no delay between the CS and US
C. The hippocampus is required for fear conditioning to a tone followed by a shock
D. The hippocampus is required for food aversion as the result of poisoning
E. All of the above
10406. What distinguishes delay versus trace conditioning?
A. In trace conditioning, there is no delay between the CS and the US
*B. In delay conditioning, there is no delay between the CS and the US
C. Delay conditioning requires a functional hippocampus
D. Trace conditioning requires a functional striatum
E. If trace conditioning is impaired then delay conditioning must be impaired
10501. A novel input generates a larger neural response than a repeated input because
A. It is processed by more habituated neurons
*B. It is processed by more unhabituated neurons
C. It possesses more "unfamiliarity."
D. It does not have a representation in long-term memory
E. None of the above
10502. According to the Groves and Thompson model, when a CS that has not been presented recently occurs just before a US…
A. Habituated neurons generate a strong signal
B. Habituated neurons generate a weak signal
C. Unhabituated neurons generate a weak signal
*D. Unhabituated neurons generate a strong signal
E. Both habituated and unhabituated neurons generate a strong signal
10503. When a CS that has not been presented recently occurs just before a US…
A. The neurons detecting the CS have become habituated through disuse
B. The neurons detecting the CS generate a weak signal
*C. The neurons detecting the CS generate a strong signal
D. The neurons detecting the CS also detect the US
E. The neurons detecting the CS dishabituate the neurons detecting the US
10504. Suppose that we sound a low-pitched tone six times before an eye blink conditioning trial. What will be an effective CS?