Testing effect

The testing effect is the finding that long-term memory is increased when some of the learning period is devoted to retrieving the to-be-remembered information through testing with proper feedback. The effect is also sometimes referred to as retrieval practice, practice testing, or test-enhanced learning.

It is useful for people to test their knowledge of the to-be-remembered material during the studying process, instead of solely studying or reading the material. For example, a student can use flashcards to self-test and receive feedback as they study. The testing effect provides the largest benefit to long-term memory when the tested material is difficult enough to require effort, the retrieval success is high, and feedback with correct answers is given after testing.

The first documented empirical study on the testing effect was published in 1917 by Gates. An important step in proving the existence of the testing effect was presented in a 1992 study by Carrier and Pashler. Carrier and Pashler showed that testing practice does not just provide an additional practice opportunity, but produces better results than other forms of studying. In their experiment, learners who tested their knowledge during practice later remembered more information than learners who spent the same amount of time studying the complete information. The abstract summarizes the results as follows:

In the pure study trial (pure ST condition) method, both items of a pair were presented simultaneously for study. In the test trial/study trial (TTST condition) method, subjects attempted to retrieve the response term during a period in which only the stimulus term was present (and the response term of the pair was presented after a 5-sec delay). Final retention of target items was tested with cued-recall tests. In Experiment 1, there was a reliable advantage in final testing for nonsense-syllable/number pairs in the TTST condition over pairs in the pure ST condition. In Experiment 2, the same result was obtained with Eskimo/English word pairs. This benefit of the TTST condition was not apparently different for final retrieval after 5 min or after 24 h. Experiments 3 and 4 ruled out two artifactual explanations of the TTST advantage observed in the first two experiments. Because performing a memory retrieval (TTST condition) led to better performance than pure study (pure ST condition), the results reject the hypothesis that a successful retrieval is beneficial only to the extent that it provides another study experience.

Carrier and Pashler study did not reveal a very large advantage of testing over studying, but paved the way for numerous further studies that have shown a more marked advantage. The results of a 2010 study by Agarwal et al. showed that the desirable difficulty of open-book and closed-book tests better enhanced learning compared to restudying or testing without feedback. Additionally, a study done by Roediger and Karpicke showed that students in the repeated-testing condition recalled much more after a week than did students in the repeated-study condition (61% vs. 40%), even though students in the former condition read the passage only 3.4 times and those in the latter condition read it 14.2 times. However, another study by Butler cites that testing only promotes the learning of a specific response, and his results showed that the mnemonic benefits of retrieving information from memory are seen well beyond this retention of a specific response. Thus, most studies show greater advantages for testing compared to studying as it relates to long-term retention of to-be-remembered information, but some studies have produced results that have contradicted this claim. Future research must consider the results and methods of both viewpoints in order to produce results that represent whether testing or studying has greater benefits on long-term retention of information.

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Wikipedia