Retrieval practice, unlike repeated studying, is a significant aspect in maximizing academic achievements. It has been argued to be the most effective study strategy across all levels of learning. This paper focuses on establishing the most effective strategy in studying by comparing the effectiveness of testing and restudying. The conclusions drawn in this research are based on the evaluation of three experiments conducted by various scholars who also wanted to find out the most effective learning strategy. From the evaluation of the three experiments, it is vivid that self-testing stimulates content retention for long-term use.
Introduction
Learning becomes complete when learners are able to produce answers to questions about the content learned. Retrieval method is among the learning tools which stimulate long-term retention of content, although students don't apply the tool effectively in self-regulated learning. Retrieval practice has got more mnemonic benefits compared to restudying which has been proved to be a less effective strategy in maximizing the performance of students in higher learning institutions. Moreover, retrieval practice stimulates knowledge acquisition which can be applied to different contexts (Ariel " Karpicke, 2017). The ability of retrieval process to consolidate memories has significant insinuations to educational practice application. Research reveals that repeated testing has vast positive impacts on learning than repeated studying. Self-testing is the most effective study strategy because it maximizes long-term retention of content by students in colleges.
Keywords: retrieval practice, self-regulated learning, mnemonic, repeated testing, repeated studying
The Effectiveness of Self-Testing as a Study Strategy
Ariel and Karpicke (2017) debate that retrieval practice technique has proven to be effective across all levels of learning ranging from elementary education to college. However, most students prefer using other study strategies like restudying, and if they try using the strategy of retrieval practice, they apply it ineffectively. According to research, effective repeated retrieval enhances better retention compared to a single retrieval attempt and the best way of maximizing long-term retention is by students recalling correctly three times in every study (Ariel " Karpicke, 2017). Generally, students view retrieval practice as a strategy for monitoring memory, failing to understand the memorial benefits that come along with it. Additionally, those who embrace this study strategy ignore repeated self-testing hence drop the content after the first retrieval. Ariel and Karpicke (2017) postulate that retrieval practice exposes the learner to more diagnostic cues of later performance of the memory compared to the available cues during the study.
Ariel and Karpicke carried out experiments which tried to correct learners' incorrect metacognitive knowledge regarding the benefits of memory accruing from retrieval practice by giving learners instructions that retrieval practice which is repeated is more effective in studying compared to restudying. The learners were constantly instructed on the use of repeated retrieval practice which was aimed at maximizing content retention. Precisely, they were instructed to learn some content by recalling three times before dropping the item. Self-regulating strategies were compared across the two experiments where one group of students were under strategy intervention whereas the control group had no strategy interventions although all groups were exposed to self-regulation in learning a foreign language. Learners made their own decisions on the study strategy to use in various self-regulated practice. The aim of the researchers was to establish whether minimum instruction intervention leads to alteration of self-regulated learning, it was discovered that the implementation of repeated retrieval by learners was ineffective. The researchers further discovered that "accurate metacognitive knowledge about strategy effectiveness does not always translate into effective strategy implementation," (Ariel " Karpicke, 2017). This implies that if students are not willing to embrace repeated retrieval practice or they are unable to effectively implement the strategy, then this may hamper the application of the strategy in retaining content during learning.
Furthermore, Karpicke and Roediger (2008) argue that retrieving practice is a neutral event which evaluates learning although it does not produce learning by itself. The two scholars were motivated to carry out a study with an objective of validating the impacts of repeated testing and repeated studies on learning. In their experiments, they used word pairs from foreign language vocabulary to examine how restudying and repeated testing contribute to learning. This was achieved by the comparison between three dropout conditions and standard learning conditions. Karpickie and Roediger had college students studying various foreign language vocabulary while manipulating the appearance of words in the list and dropping them after the learners recalled them for the first time. During a study period, the students were exposed to study 40-word pairs in Swahili-English and later tested during test periods. Whenever a word was correctly recalled, it was given a different treatment in the four conditions until the conventional wisdom condition where the educators instructed the students to study the words until they can be recalled. The students were dismissed and tested after a week. Although the final recall in the four conditions was equivalent, during the one-week delay test it was realized that the actual recall was different across the four conditions. This implies that testing unlike restudying is a significant aspect in stimulating long-term retention (Karpickie " Roediger, 2008). Therefore the researchers found out that repeated retrieval practice stimulates long-term retention while restudying generates no benefit in learning.
Moreover, Tan, Rohrer and Pashler (2015) claim that "review through testing produces better final recall than does review through restudying. To explicate on this, they conducted several experiments which aim at determining the impact of retrieval practice on drawing conclusions which rely on various premises, whereby each was learned separately. In one experiment they used 68 California University students for course credit. There were four unrelated scenarios, with each comprising seven premises. Every set of premise entailed numerous logical implications, assessed using multiple-choice transfer test. During the study periods, the subjects studied the premises using either retrieval practice or restudying with study conditions kept constant. The learners were tested one by one and the experiment was complete within an hour. Students were directed to read the premises, which were sequentially presented and that later they would be required to draw inferences from the studied premises. Using retrieval practice or restudying, the learners reviewed the premises. In the condition of restudying, instructions were given to the learners to click "continue" after reading so that they move to the next premise. In the condition of retrieval practice, the learners were presented with premises with missing words and required to recall. During the assessment, the learners were presented with 8 multiple-choice questions and required to draw inferences from the learned premises. The retrieval practice condition revealed a higher performance compared to the restudying condition (Tan, Rohrer and Pashler, 2015). This implies that retrieval practice has more benefit on final assessment compared to reread strategy. The experiment proved that testing stimulates recall.
Critical Analysis
The results obtained in the three studies justifies that retrieval practice yields more benefits on retention of content compared to the restudying strategy. Ariel and Karpicke's experiment reveals that retrieval practice strategy enhances content retention during learning, although it is limited by its ineffective application by students. The control experiment which revealed controversial results, as well as the self-regulated learning whereby students were allowed to decide on their own the study strategy to use, validate this study. Besides, the time lapse between study and testing were appropriate since the effects of testing are realized if there is a time lapse between learning and testing. However, the fact that this research does not highlight the conditions that were kept constant throughout the study limits the validity of the inferences.
From Karpicke and Roediger's experiment, they found out that testing unlike restudying is a significant aspect in stimulating long-term retention. Their conclusions can be justified despite the fact that there was no control experiment nor self-regulated learning, all the four conditions were kept constant and there was a delay of one week between learning and testing which was enough to determine whether the learners were able to retrieve the content learned. Although the research conducted by Tan, Rohrer, and Pashler arrived at a similar conclusion as the other studies in this paper, it has various limitations. The method of review used (fill-in-the-blank) involves short answers hence it is not a good method to test the ability of learners to retrieve information. Moreover, the time lapse between study and assessment was too short (one hour) to test content retention since the impacts of testing can be realized if there is a delay between learning and testing. Despite the limitations, the study conditions were kept constant, and this validates the findings.
Conclusion
Deductively, the three studies reveal that retrieval process, if applied effectively, enhances long-term retention of the content learned to compare to restudying. Retrieval practice exposes the learner to more diagnostic cues of later performance of the memory. Moreover, testing unlike restudying is a significant aspect in maximizing academic achievements, especially for students in higher levels of education. Therefore, Kimmy Schmidt should embrace self-testing as a learning strategy in preparing for her for her PSYC101 final exams.
References
Ariel, R., " Karpicke, J. D. (2017). Improving self-regulated learning with a retrieval practice intervention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 24(1), 43.doi: 10.1037/xap0000133
Karpicke, J. D., " Roediger, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science, 319(5865), 966-968. doi:10.1126/science.115240
Tran, R., Rohrer, D., " Pashler, H. (2015). Retrieval practice: the lack of transfer to deductive inferences. Psychonomic Bulletin " Review, 22(1), 135-140.8 doi: 10.3758/s13423-014-0646-x
