the psychology of learning and motivation - Percepts and Concepts ...

4 Henry L. Roediger et al.an indirect effect on apportionment of study activities. We return toevidence bearing on this issue later (Section 11).The above two examples are clear, but in some cases tests may haveboth direct and indirect benefits. We will revisit this issue from time totime throughout the chapter. We now consider the 10 benefits of testing(see Table 1), but we have a section at the end outlining possible detrimentsto testing, too.2. BENEFIT 1: THE TESTING EFFECT: RETRIEVAL AIDS LATERRETENTIONIn this section, we review several experiments demonstrating thebasic testing effect, the fact that information retrieved from memory leadsto better performance on a later test. There are perhaps a hundredexperiments we could choose from, but we have selected two straightforwardones from our own lab to make the case. The first experimentused easily nameable pictures as materials (the kind of material thatexperimental psychologists like to use) whereas the second experimentused nonfiction prose materials more relevant to education. However, thebasic testing effect has been obtained with many other types of materials,such as foreign language vocabulary, map reading, general knowledgequestions, and so on.Wheeler and Roediger (1992) conducted an experiment in which astrong testing effect occurred, although the experiment was mostly abouta different topic. We present selected conditions here from their experimentto make our points about testing. Their subjects saw 60 picturesTable 1Ten Benefits of TestingBenefit 1 The testing effect: retrieval aids later retentionBenefit 2 Testing identifies gaps in knowledgeBenefit 3 Testing causes students to learn more from the next learningepisodeBenefit 4 Testing produces better organization of knowledgeBenefit 5 Testing improves transfer of knowledge to new contextsBenefit 6 Testing can facilitate retrieval of information that was nottestedBenefit 7 Testing improves metacognitive monitoringBenefit 8 Testing prevents interference from prior material whenlearning new materialBenefit 9 Testing provides feedback to instructorsBenefit 10 Frequent testing encourages students to study