Stakes and chips

Knowledge, Stakes, and Mistakes

To illustrate, Folk stakes sensitivity says that all else equal, people are less likely to say that Sarah knows that her health insurance is current, if she is about to get hit by a bus and incur huge medical bills. Folk stakes sensitivity holds intrinsic interest to anyone interested in the psychological basis of knowledge ascription. It holds further interest to epistemologists by featuring a...

Large Stakes and Big Mistakes

Most upper-management and sales force personnel, as well as workers in many other jobs, are paid based on performance, which is widely perceived as motivating effort and enhancing productivity relative to non-contingent pay schemes. However, psychological research suggests that excessive rewards can in some cases produce supra-optimal motivation, resulting in a decline in performance. To test w...

High-Stakes Interpretation

High-Stakes Testing

I review the literature on the impact on student achievement of high-stakes testing. Its popularity as a mechanism for holding educators accountable has triggered studies to examine whether its promise to increase student learning has been fulfilled. The review concludes there is no consistent evidence to suggest high-stakes testing leads to increases in student learning. Some evidence suggests...

Gender, Spatial Ability, and High-Stakes Testing

Researchers disagree on the relationships between gender, spatial ability and math achievement. Varied results from studies using different measures and populations fuel the debate. The present study adds to the gender-spatial-math literature by examining this relationship in the context of high-stakes math testing. Results indicate no gender effect on spatial ability or math achievement, and a...