Evidence of practice effects in variants of the Trail Making Test during serial assessment

Abstract

Practice effects often obscure detection of meaningful intraindividual cognitive change in serial assessment. The Trail Making Test and four of its variants (i.e., Trail Making Test of the Delis–Kaplan Executive Functioning System, Comprehensive Trail Making Test, Connections Task, and Planned Connections) were administered to college-aged participants over a 3-week period with 7 days separating each session. Linear growth analysis yielded statistically significant average change in slope across time periods at the p < .05 level for each of the five instruments. The results raise concern about clinical interpretations based upon repeated use of each instrument in serial assessment.

This project was funded by the State University of New York at Plattsburgh's Presidential Research Award. The authors thank Xitao Fan and Timothy Konold for their helpful suggestions and Hunter Sweet, Greg Young, and Thomas Powers for their invaluable contributions to the study.