The Kaplan GRE preparatory people are coming to town (well, to campus anyway), offering the inducement of free practice tests on the GRE and undoubtedly also providing a hard sell of their services.
I was preparing to send around a gratuitous note to our students, offering the advice that people would be better off saving their money and just practicing on their own. But I thought that perhaps I'd better check the literature first. I was surprised to find, among the most recent of what's there, the conclusion that intensive, structured preparation courses help (not specifically Kaplan, but I assume simulated Kaplan). I have only the abstracts to go on. One of them is a 1996 study of J. Miller et al in Journal of Behavioral Education. Another is a dissertation which is a replication of the Miller study plus other stuff (C. Groeger, Dissertations Abstracts International, 1999). The conclusion seems to be that such courses do boost verbal and quantitative. Yet I'm hard to convince. It strikes me that the design is before- after (pretest-posttest) only, and I'd expect some gain just from increased familiarity with the tests. I'd like to see how well the intensive, structured training compares with a contrast group, given only the opportunity to practice taking GRE exams on their own. I'd think that many would show improvement just from practice. But is there something more that only Kaplan-type courses can deliver? Anyone have any thoughts (or evidence) on this? -Stephen ______________________________________________________________ Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470 Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661 Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips _________________________________________________________ --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
