Does testing potentiate new learning because it enables learners to use better strategies?

Testing can potentiate new learning, which is often called the forward testing effect. One potential explanation for this benefit is that testing might enable participants to use more effective learning strategies subsequently. We investigated this possibility by asking participants to report their encoding strategies in a multi-list foreign language learning paradigm with four preregistered experiments and one non-preregistered pilot experiment. In Experiments 1-3, participants learned three lists of Chinese-English pairs; one group took a test after every list (i.e., test condition) and the other group took a test only for the criterial List 3 (i.e., restudy condition). In addition, participants completed a transfer test and a study strategy survey. Although we found a forward testing effect in all experiments, participants in the test and restudy conditions did not report differences in strategies. In Experiments 4 and 5, we used a within-subject design so that we could correlate changes in strategy use with the magnitude of the forward testing effect on an individual level. Interestingly, individual differences in strategy change were moderately associated with the magnitude of the forward testing effect, but even here, strategy change did not mediate the effect of testing on performance. Overall, our data showed that, at least for foreign language learning of Chinese characters, interim testing did not enhance new learning by altering participants' subsequent encoding strategies. Moreover, our data showed that interim testing did not promote the transfer of Chinese language learning to novel characters. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Guessing as a learning intervention: A meta-analytic review of the prequestion effect.

Giving students test questions before they have learned the correct answers (i.e., prequestions) enhances learning. However, existing research has provided conflicting evidence on whether the benefits of prequestions are specific to the initially tested material or if they generalize to new, nontested material. In this review, we summarize the literature on the prequestion effect, describe the attention-based account underlying this effect, report a meta-analysis of the magnitude of the specific and general effects, and explore theoretically and empirically relevant moderator variables that influence the size and direction of the prequestion effect. This preregistered meta-analysis demonstrated a moderate specific effect (g = 0.54, k = 97) but a virtually nonexistent general effect (g = 0.04, k = 91). Overall, the attention-based account received support from some theoretically relevant moderator analyses. Future researchers are encouraged to conduct theoretically motivated studies to help clarify the mechanisms that underlie the attention-enhancing effects of prequestions and to explore the benefits of prequestions in educational domains to establish the extent to which these effects translate into the classroom.

Unproctored online exams provide meaningful assessment of student learning.

In the United States, the onset of COVID-19 triggered a nationwide lockdown, which forced many universities to move their primary assessments from invigilated in-person exams to unproctored online exams. This abrupt change occurred midway through the Spring 2020 semester, providing an unprecedented opportunity to investigate whether online exams can provide meaningful assessments of learning relative to in-person exams on a per-student basis. Here, we present data from nearly 2,000 students across 18 courses at a large Midwestern University. Using a meta-analytic approach in which we treated each course as a separate study, we showed that online exams produced scores that highly resembled those from in-person exams at an individual level despite the online exams being unproctored-as demonstrated by a robust correlation between online and in-person exam scores. Moreover, our data showed that cheating was either not widespread or ineffective at boosting scores, and the strong assessment value of online exams was observed regardless of the type of questions asked on the exam, the course level, academic discipline, or class size. We conclude that online exams, even when unproctored, are a viable assessment tool.

Does testing enhance new learning because it insulates against proactive interference?

Taking a test on previously learned material can enhance new learning. One explanation for this forward testing effect is that retrieval inoculates learners from proactive interference (PI). Although this release-from-PI account has received considerable empirical support, most extant evidence is correlational rather than causal. We tested this account by manipulating the level of PI that participants experience as they studied several lists while receiving interpolated tests or not. In Experiments 1 and 2, we found that testing benefited new learning similarly regardless of PI level. These results contradict those from Nunes and Weinstein (Memory, 20(2), 138-154, 2012), who found no forward testing effect when encoding conditions minimized PI. In Experiments 3 and 4, we failed to replicate their results. Together, our data indicate that reduced PI might be a byproduct, rather than a causal factor, of the forward testing effect.