EPPP Strategies & Tips is a video we recently released on all the benefits of integrating testing into your studying. Let us know if you found this beneficial! Enjoy!
Transcript:
“Hey guys, it’s Dr. Taylor.
Throughout all of our schooling, testing has always been used to assess what we know. But research is showing us that strategically integrating testing into one’s studying, the learning and memory process. More specifically, testing actually improves learning verses just studying content alone. And it increases the likely hood that you’ll better remember the content later.
Two learning theories explain this benefit of weaving testing into content studying. The first, is the Mediator Effectiveness Hypothesis. And the second, is the Testing Effect. Mediator Effectiveness Hypothesis states that we generate more effective mediators during the testing process which helps with retention of the subject you’re learning. These mediators are mental hints and keywords, in other words information linking cues, to targets.
Research out of Kent State University tells us that practice tests are an effective coding strategy. They found that incorporating testing into ones preparation provides learners with these effective mental hints, better key words, or mediators. Their research evidenced that the best way to create these mediators involves using tests, with restudy – verses just study or restudying alone. The testing effect involves retrieval practice. It results in significant improvement in long term retention resulting from testing after reading.
Using practice tests activates the retrieval process that facilitates the learning and memory of your study materials. Its hypothesized that the use of retrieval testing involves the organization of information, and the elaboration of existing memory traces in such a way that you are creating cues that your brain will later recognize, allowing greater recall of the knowledge that has been effectively stored in your long term memory.
Testing creates substantially greater retention than studying. Even though repeted studying tends to increase a students confidence in their own ability to remember the material. Testing is a powerful means of improving learning, not just assessing it.
There is a study that looked at the impact of testing on the learning and memory process that had two groups of students; one that was involved in repeated testing