TITLE:
Influences on the Marking of Examinations
AUTHORS:
Christina Bermeitinger, Benjamin Unger
KEYWORDS:
Anchoring Effect; Marking; Feedback; Mood; Written Tests; Performance Judgments
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.5 No.2,
February
26,
2014
ABSTRACT:
In the present work, we
examined a phenomenon highly relevant in the educational field for assessing or
judging performance, that is, the question how the second examiner’s marking is
influenced by the evaluation of the first examiner. This phenomenon is known as
anchoring in cognitive psychology. In general, in anchoring effects numeric
information (i.e., the anchor) pulls estimations or judgments towards the
anchor. One domain which is highly important in real life has been investigated
only occasionally, that is, the marking of examinations. In three experiments,
participants were asked to evaluate a written assignment. The mark (either good
or bad) of a ficticious first examiner was used as the anchor. We found clear anchoring effects that were unaffected by feedback in a
preceding task (positive, neutral, negative) or the expert status of the
presumed first examiner. We discussed the problems related to this effect.