The Effect of Need for Achievement, Ability, and Lecture Notes in Classroom Test Performance

The present study involved two separate experiments. Experiment I involved a group of Psychology 101 students who had not purchased a local publication named Lecture Notes for the Psychology 101 lectures. These students were then classified as high and low achievers by utilizing the n Ach scale of the EPPS, and high and low in ability by their respective SCAT score. One of half the subjects in each of the four groups were given a free set of Lecture Notes to the Psychology 101 lectures. Performance on Psychology 101 exams became the dependent variable. Lecture Notes and the n Ach were shown to be nonsignificant while ability was shown to be a significant predictor of academic performance. Experiment II examined the same ability and n Ach measures for students who had purchased the Lecture Notes. Ability was a significant predictor of performance while n Ach and Lecture Notes were not