Answers....To Change or Not to Change....That is the Question

For years, I have impressed upon my students the fallacy of changing their answers on my tests. Well....I may have to alter my current view point. According to a recent study in the Canadian Journal of Experimental Pshychology by Higham and Gerrard of the University of Southamptom, I could be wrrr, wrrroo, I could have to rethink this. In the 2005 article entitled: Not All Errors Are Created Equal: Meta cognition and Changing Answers on Multiple-Choice Tests it stated that as many as 86% of us have subscribed to that old belief that if you change an answer you will most likely change it wrong. Reality; however, has reared its ugly head to state otherwise. According to the study, although most of us believe that, if you change the answer after careful contemplation, there's a good chance that you will be changing it to the correct answer and actually improve your test score. The numbers are still out on the actual improvement level, but the initial numbers would support this idea. Now, from my own perspective, I generally see a different trend. My students do generally change answers that would have been correct. This new research; however, will definitely have me rethinking telling my students not to change. How about you? Is there a change in your future?