Short-Term Memory: A

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Journal of Test Construction 1

Short-Term Memory Test:

An Assessment Method for Future

Counselors

Marlin Rusli, Edwin Sutamto, Lena Febriana, and Alice Ade

Atma Jaya Catholic University

Jakarta, Indonesia

Abstract

This paper discusses about a test construction based on the construct of short-term memory.

Specifically, this test was constructed as a reference to a university for selecting the student

candidates in the Guidance and Counseling Program from the Teacher Training and Education

Faculty. The construction of the test comes up from the awareness of the lacking basic skills

the students have. This situation may cause the low performance of the students in counseling

practice. Its not the matter of how well they speak, but mainly on how they receive their future

clients information and use it as a treatment reference.

Introduction

Nowadays, counselor has been a popular and promising profession for some people.

The reason why is life challenges has become harder each day. Those problems are not just

common in adults life, which most people think as a cause oftheir work problems, family, and

even love life. Life problems can occur in childrens daily life. Most schools in the large cities

have their own school counselors. Usually they are teachers who took counseling or

psychology major as a focus on their further studies.

A study in one of Jakartas leading Catholic University shows that school counselors are

created from its counseling major. Subjects that refer to the skills of the future counselors are

basic counseling technic, approaches in counseling, counseling on social and individual aspects,


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and a lot more. Most of the subject requires field activities. Students are challenge to learn not

only from textbooks, but also in real life practices. Carl Rogers theory talks about the basic

skills that are needed as a good counselor, empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive

regard. As for the Head of Guidance and Counseling Program from the Teacher Training and

Education Faculty, Yoseph Pedhu, CP, said that its not only the matter of theory but also thereal life practice itself. Students must have good listening and memory skills.

Short-term memory (primary memory) is the capacity to hold information in the brain

in a short time and under conditions that can be directly used (Miller, 1956). Short term

memory stores information for roughly 18-30 seconds, although the information can be stored

longer if a conscious effort is made to keep it there by rehearsing it.

According to several experiments conducted by Miller (1956), the capacity of short-

term memory itself is limited to about seven units, plus or minus two. Each unit can be defineddifferently, depending on the types of input and also whether the listener has any previous

knowledge on the particular type of input or not.

Counselors way of doing their job is by listening to their clients stories, whatever it will

be, and try to lead their client onto a solution. A study about listening comprehension shows

that short-term memory in auditory is the most important component in listening

comprehension. Therefore, counselors who mainly do their job by listening to peoples stories

for the purpose of designing a treatment that suits the clients need to have a good auditoryshort-term memory.

An auditory short-term memory or also called verbal memory functions to assist

individuals in understanding a certain language. Individuals use the memory to store, process,

understand, and assimilate a conversation (Alton, 2001). Auditory short-term memory is

associated with speed and articulation of words. The main function of auditory short-term

memory is important when individuals are listening.

The Short-Term Memory Test is an ability/aptitude test that is made as tool for earlyprognosis on future counselors. Implying from the definition of short-term memory, there are

three domains that can be break down: the sum of number elements in mind, the sum of letter

elements in mind, and the number of word elements in mind. The design of Short-Term

Memory Test is to consist of 21 made from numbers, letters, and word that have the range of

difficulty from 3 to 9. These items are given in a form of an audio recording and to be tested

individually.

The main purpose of this test is to measure one of the important components incounseling, which is memory skill. This tests outcome will be a score on the students level of

auditory short-term memory. As said before that the auditory short-term memory play an


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important role in listening comprehension, counselors should have this skill as their basic

foundation. The score from this test will act as a reference for the university in accepting the

new admissions.

Method

Attempting Try Out

Implementing from the definitions of short-term memory, we develop a set of numbers,

letters, and words that are used as stimulus to measure the subjects short-term memory. Each

element varies in the number of items in it. These items also act as the difficulty level of the

Short-Term Memory Test. This tests format is a recording thatcontains the items spoken in

Bahasa Indonesia. The sequence of the items was made from the lowest range (which is 3) to

the highest (which is 9) in an order from the numbers, letters, and the words element.

We conducted an individual try out to sort out which items that are acceptable for this

test. Participants of the try out were 72 students from different majors in the university. For

the try out, we prepared 63 items, which consist of 21 items formed in numbers, 21 items

formed in letters, and 21 items formed in words.

Each participant was given a headset that is attached to an audio player device.

Participants were to re-write the items they heard from the recording in the right order as

given. Scoring is based on the correct answers written by the participants. The value for each

correct answer is given a score of 1 and 0 for every incorrect answer.

Results

Item Analysis

The function of the try out is to decide which of the 63 items that will qualify in the

Short-Term Memory Test. In the item analysis, we used item difficulty and item discrimination

as the parameter of the qualified items. The item difficulty of each item should be in the range

of 0.30 p 0.80 or else, it must be eliminated. If an item has a proportion below 0.30, it

indicates that the item is very difficult. And also if the proportion of the item is above 0.80, then

it is very easy.

Point-biserial correlation was used to examine the item discrimination. The point-

biserial shows the correlation between each items score and the total score. The higher it

correlates, it shows that the item manage to discriminate the participants who have high short-


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term memory and who dont. Each items point-biserial correlation value should be higher than

0.20 to be qualified.

Based on the analysis of the items that have been carried out, there are 23 out of 63

items that were accepted and can be used. From the calculation of item difficulty, there are 27

items that qualify. Items that qualify are items that have a moderate level of difficulty (0.30 p 0.80). The rest, 11 items that are rejected for being too difficult (p 0.8).

In the point-biserial calculation, there are 32 items accepted and 31 rejected. Items that

are denied have point-biserial correlation value which is lower than 0.2. It means that these

items do not represent the measurements of short-term memory. As a result, these items

couldnt discriminate participants who have high or low short-term memory capabilities.

Validity

The validation methods used for this test are construct validation and criterion

prediction validation. Construct validation method is used in order to see whether this test has

fulfilled its function to measure the construct in the form of short-term memory theoretically.

While the criterion prediction validation is used to see whether this test is able to fulfill its

function to predict individual performance in the practice of counseling in the future.

For the construct validation, we used internal consistency as the internal validation ofthis test. We determined the limits of internal consistency by using the limits used in the

calculation of item-total correlation, which is greater than 0.2 (Field, 2013). Another method

used for computing the construct validation is convergent-discriminant method. The

convergent test used by the group is one of the sub-tests in Wechsler-Bellevue test: the digit

span. Meanwhile the discriminant test used is the sub-test also from Wechsler-Bellevue test:

the information processing. When the correlation with convergent method has a value of 0.5-

0.7, then this test can be said to be valid. Meanwhile, when the correlation with discriminantmethod has a negative value then this test can be said to be valid (Gronlund, 1982).


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Table 1

Construct Validation

Domain Item No. Domain Correlation Construct Correlation

The sum of number

elements in mind

1 0.000 0.000

4 0.000 0.000

7 0.309 0.468

10 0.440 0.595

13 0.772 0.786

16 0.673 0.706

19 0.567 0.528

The sum of letter

elements in mind

2 0.403 0.380

5 0.417 0.218

8 0.398 0.339

11 0.447 0.478

14 0.476 0.772

17 0.489 0.518

20 0.113 0.244

The sum of word

elements in mind

3 0.000 0.000

6 0.239 0.113

9 0.346 0.645

12 0.38 0.356

15 0.456 0.444

18 0.368 0.212

21 0.468 0.243

Pearson

STMT - Digit Span

Pearson STMT

Information Processing

Internal

Consistency

0.521 0.371 0.383

The calculation result of discriminant validity, the total scores of STMT are correlated

with the information processing sub-test of Wechsler-Bellevue test is equals to 0.371.

Meanwhile the results of the convergent validity, which is by correlating the total score of

STMT with digit span sub-test of Wechsler-Bellevue test is equals to 0.521. Aside from that, the

calculation result for the internal consistency is equals to 0.383. Referring to the restrictions

provided by Gronlund, the Short-Term Memory Test is not valid by the discriminant validity

but said to be valid by the convergent validity and internal consistency.


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Based on calculations performed using SPSS, the correlation value obtained for the

criterion prediction validity is equals to 0.322. The score indicates a significant relationship

between the Short-Term Memory Test and the Counseling subject scores in the 3rd semester

students. So it can be concluded that the Short-Term Memory Test can be used to predict

students performance in the future.

Reliability

The type of reliability testing used for the Short-Term Memory Test is one-time

administrative procedures by the method of Kuder Richardson 20. This method is used

because of the items score in this test is dichotomous and it consists of various degrees of

difficulty on each item.

Table 2

Reliability Testing

MethodReliability

CoefficientError

KR-20 0.827 0.173

The results obtained when using the method of KR-20 is equals to 0.827. Due to the

limit of the stated value on a reliable measuring instrument is 0.75, the Short-Term Memory

Test can be said to be reliable for measuring the short-term memory of the Guidance and

Counseling Program from the Teacher Training and Education Departmentstudent candidates.

Setting Norms

The standardization technique used for this test is setting standard by using norm. We

used the norms of the group to see the position of individuals within the group itself. We

computed the normality test to figure out which method will be used to define the norm. Then,

computing a standard score (z-score) of the raw data will be required when the score of the

distributions is generated in normal form.


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Table 3

Normality Testing

One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test

TOTAL

N 42

Normal Parametersa,bMean 11,60

Std. Deviation 3,683

Most Extreme Differences

Absolute ,132

Positive ,096

Negative -,132

Kolmogorov-Smirnov Z ,855

Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) ,458

a. Test distribution is Normal.

b. Calculated from data.

Chart 1

Raw Score Distribution


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RS SS Category

12 51,10 Pass

13 53,81 Pass

14 56,53 Pass

15 59.24 Pass

16 61,96 Pass

17 64,68 Pass

Discussion

Constructing the Short-Term Memory Test has its own challenges. Aside from its

various domains, the STMT lacks on objectivity in its items. For the word element items, there

was no previous assessment or studied indicating, which words can represent the mainconstruct of the test associating with the targeted participants. The words used as the items of

this test may have certain meanings or association for the participants. This may be the cause

of the discriminant validity to be said not valid. The subjective stimulus may cause the Short-

Term Memory Test to have an overlap to other test that measures different construct. Selection

for the discriminant validity test should also be given more attention. The wrong test may

cause the not valid result due to the overlapping main construct.

Aside from that, participants that were used for the try out and field have differentcriteria. This may affect the qualified items is really not that appropriate for this test. Another

factor that may cause defect to the try out and field is the place where the tests are held. This

should be more carefully controlled when conducting a test. Furthermore, in constructing a

test, researchers should pay more attention to every details of the process. A single small

mistake may cause invalid and unreliable test, which means a waste of energy and time for

nothing.


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Reference

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Gronlund, N. E. (1982). Constructing Achievement Tests. New Jersey: Prentice Hall

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page 129-137.

Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven plus or minus two: some limitations or ourcapacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63(2): 81-97.

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Short-Term Memory: A