David,
Sure, many instructors do use pretesting as a motivator in the way and for the reason you describe. Some think pretests have to be comprehensive, long, and all inclusive. Not necessarily the case. I have done pretesting by selecting a couple of key course objectives and then came up with 10 questions for students to answer. And I don't grade pretests, which I think allows the student more opportunity to try to answer questions correctly.
Barry Westling
