What is the term for whether the skill changes from trial to trial?

• A. Intra-trial variability
• B. Intertrial
• C. Intermittent variability
• D. Temporal variability

Answer: (B)

This question is about how performance changes from one attempt to the next. The term for that pattern is intertrial variability. It describes how much the outcome varies across trials, reflecting how consistent someone’s performance is from trial to trial as they practice.

If variability happens within a single attempt, that’s intra-trial variability—fluctuations inside one trial rather than across trials. Temporal variability relates to timing aspects of the movement, such as differences in duration or onset, which can occur but isn’t specifically about changes from one trial to another. Intermittent variability isn’t the standard term used to describe trial-to-trial changes. So the best fit for changes from trial to trial is intertrial variability.