Security Blanket or Crutch? Crib Card Usage Depends on Students’ Abilities

Abstract

This study investigated whether students use crib cards as a security blanket or a crutch by asking students to tally the number of times they used them during exams in a statistics class. There was a negative correlation between the number of times students used their crib cards and exam performance. High-achieving students did not utilize their crib cards very much, and this did not appreciably change over the course of the semester, implying that they may be merely a security blanket. Moderate- and low-achieving students increased their crib card usage throughout the semester, suggesting support for the dependency hypothesis. This research indicates that student ability may be a key moderator for the crib card literature to consider.