The reliability and stability of the turner and Engle working memory task (original) (raw)

Abstract

The present study explored the psychometric properties of Turner and Engle’s (1989) operation span task, a widely used measure of working memory capacity. We administered the task three times to 33 college students, using equivalent test materials. The interval between the first and second administrations was 3 weeks, with 6–7 weeks between the second and third administrations. Alpha coefficients were all .75 or more. Recall accuracy decreased as operation set size increased. Raw test-retest correlations ranged from .67 to .81, the corrected reliability was .88, and stability scores ranged from .76 to .92. Performance improved from the first to the second test. Relative to reported reliabilities of other tasks used to assess individual differences in working memory capacity, the operation span task appears to have several statistical advantages.

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Authors and Affiliations

1. Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, Box 7801, 27695, Raleigh, NC
   Kitty Klein & William H. Fiss

Authors

1. Kitty Klein
2. William H. Fiss

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Correspondence toKitty Klein.

Additional information

We thank Adriel Boals, who programmed the working memory task, and Randall W. Engle, who provided many helpful comments during the preparation of this report.

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Klein, K., Fiss, W.H. The reliability and stability of the turner and Engle working memory task.Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers 31, 429–432 (1999). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03200722

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• Received: 16 April 1998
• Accepted: 31 August 1998
• Issue date: September 1999
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03200722

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