{"id":18,"date":"2020-05-29T23:28:47","date_gmt":"2020-05-30T06:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/?page_id=18"},"modified":"2020-11-25T18:11:35","modified_gmt":"2020-11-26T01:11:35","slug":"the-testing-effect","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/assessment-appendix\/the-testing-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"The &#8220;testing effect&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"show-content user_content clearfix enhanced\">\n<p>Sometimes called retrieval practice or the testing effect, researchers have found that simply recalling information from the brain (as is done during a test or quiz) helps us to better organize and remember it.\u00a0 Consider the chart below adapted from [1] that shows results form a controlled experiment where students wrote a closed-book test one week after engaging in one of five different study approaches:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Review (x1, x2, or x3)<\/strong>: review the materials either once, twice, or three times, respectively<\/li>\n<li><strong>Review + Quiz<\/strong>: review the materials exactly one time and then immediately write a short quiz, but without finding out performance on the quiz<\/li>\n<li><strong>Review + Quiz + FB<\/strong>: as above, but this time receiving feedback on which answers were correct and incorrect on the quiz<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-452 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval1-1024x678.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"605\" height=\"401\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval1-1024x678.png 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval1-300x199.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval1-768x509.png 768w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval1-1536x1017.png 1536w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval1-100x66.png 100w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval1-150x99.png 150w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval1-200x132.png 200w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval1-450x298.png 450w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval1-600x397.png 600w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval1-900x596.png 900w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval1-1250x828.png 1250w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval1-400x265.png 400w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval1.png 1614w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 605px) 100vw, 605px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As shown by the three leftmost sets of bars, the more time students spent reviewing the materials, the better they did on the test one week later, as we would expect.\u00a0 Interestingly, reviewing the materials only one time and then writing a short practice quiz (without feedback) resulted in essentially equal performance on the test the following week as spending three times longer reviewing the materials but without a quiz.\u00a0 The short quiz helped as much as two additional study sessions.\u00a0 When students also received feedback on their quiz performance, they did the best of all, by far.\u00a0 <em><strong>The use of practice testing coupled with targeted feedback is a very power approach to improve student learning.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>It goes even deeper than that.\u00a0 When students were asked to judge their learning and to predict how they would do on the closed-book test the following week, the following data was found.\u00a0 The grey bars show students&#8217; judgement of how they would do on the test the following week (i.e., how well they learned the materials they reviewed).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-453 size-large alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval2-1024x735.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"605\" height=\"434\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval2-1024x735.png 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval2-300x215.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval2-768x552.png 768w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval2-1536x1103.png 1536w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval2-100x72.png 100w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval2-150x108.png 150w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval2-200x144.png 200w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval2-450x323.png 450w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval2-600x431.png 600w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval2-900x646.png 900w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval2-1250x898.png 1250w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval2-400x287.png 400w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/files\/2020\/06\/Retrieval2.png 1664w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 605px) 100vw, 605px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Students who did only review (no quiz) over-predicted their learning by about 15%.\u00a0 With a practice quiz but no feedback on that quiz, students were much better judges of their true learning (over-predicting by about 5%). When students did the practice quiz <em>and<\/em> received feedback, they were near perfect judges of their learning in these experiments.\u00a0 <strong>The use of a low-stakes quiz and feedback not only improved student learning, but also improved students <em>awareness<\/em> of their learning.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>References<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Agarwal, P.K., Karpicke, J.D., Kang, S.H.K., Roediger III H.L., and McDermott, K.B., \u201cExamining the Testing Effect with Open- and Closed-Book Tests,\u201d Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 22: 861\u2013876 (2008)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<table style=\"width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse; border-style: none;\" border=\"1\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 50%;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/assessment-appendix\/constructive-alignment\/\">Previous (Constructive Alignment)<\/a><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 50%; text-align: right;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/assessment-appendix\/rubrics\/\">Next (Rubrics)<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<div>\n<div class=\"module-sequence-padding\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"module-sequence-footer\" role=\"navigation\" aria-label=\"Module Navigation\">\n<div class=\"module-sequence-footer-content\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes called retrieval practice or the testing effect, researchers have found that simply recalling information from the brain (as is done during a test or quiz) helps us to better organize and remember it.\u00a0 Consider the chart below adapted from<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/assessment-appendix\/the-testing-effect\/\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4901,"featured_media":0,"parent":24,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-18","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4901"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":579,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18\/revisions\/579"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/assessmentguidebook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}