Taking a practice test before a final test produces a moderately large, statistically significant benefit for learning overall (g = 0.61 fixed-effects; g = 0.70 random-effects)¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · quant-synthesisr3·q4·i2medium
Currency · newest study 2017 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q4 i2 Across 272 independent effect sizes from 118 articles involving 15,427 participants, practice testing yielded a moderately large significant overall weighted mean effect size. → Adesope 2017
Evidence¶
Adesope 2017¶
Adesope, O. O., Trevisan, D. A., & Sundararajan, N. (2017). Rethinking the Use of Tests: A Meta-Analysis of Practice Testing. Review of Educational Research. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654316689306
q4 · i2 · quant-synthesis · r3
Meta-analysis of 272 independent effect sizes from 118 articles with 15,427 participants. The fixed-effects model showed "the overall weighted mean effect size was moderately large and statistically significant" (g = 0.61, p < .001); the random-effects model showed g = 0.70, p < .001, with high heterogeneity (I2 = .81).
"Under a fixed-effects model, Table 1 shows that the overall weighted mean effect size was moderately large and statistically significant, indicating the effectiveness of learning with practice tests (g = 0.61, p < .001)."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Retrieval practice improves long-term retention — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
- Retrieval Failure Reduces Benefit — related
- Delayed final-exam differences favored Guided-LLM descriptively but were not statistically confirmatory, with confidence intervals including zero — related
- The classroom testing effect transfers to mismatched test formats, but consistent quiz–exam formats yield a significantly larger effect (g = 0.531 vs. g = 0.399). — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
- Practice test format moderates the testing effect: mixed-format (g = 0.80) and multiple-choice (g = 0.70) practice tests produced larger effects than short-answer tests (g = 0.48) — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
practice-testing-overall-meta-analytic-benefit |
title |
Taking a practice test before a final test produces a moderately large, statistically significant benefit for learning overall (g = 0.61 fixed-effects; g = 0.70 random-effects) |
description |
Taking a practice test before a final test produces a moderately large, statistically significant benefit for learning overall (g = 0.61 fixed-effects; g = 0.70 random-effects) |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2017 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-13 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — adesope-2017 |
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