Testing effects have been obtained on attitudinal and cognitive variables in studies typically conducted on college students in which the pretest-posttest interval usually was several days or weeks. In an effort to expand our knowledge of testing effects, an assessment of testing was incorporated into a panel study of the mental health, social and psychological resources, and stressful life events of older persons. Conceivably, prior assessment of life events might produce greater subsequent recollection of events in the pretest-posttest interval. Also, the rapport established in the initial interview together with previous discussion of possible physical and mental health symptoms might yield greater disclosures of illness in a subsequent interview. In a multistage sample survey, seven out of eight dwellings in the selected segments were randomly assigned to be in the panel group; the eighth dwelling was assigned to the control group. A total of 2,042 persons 55 years and older living in the panel dwellings were interviewed on Wave 1 and reinterviewed with the same instruments six months later on Wave 2; 248 persons in the control group were interviewed only on Wave 2. Comparisons between the two groups on six measures of mental health, several measures of physical health, self-esteem and social support scales, and five measures of life events found no evidence for testing effects.
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