Retention interval moderates the testing effect: effects are larger after a day or more than at shorter intervals, where individual studies vary from reliable to null or reversed¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · quant-synthesis r3 · q3
Currency · newest study 2014 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? In Rowland's meta-analysis, testing effects were larger with retention intervals of at least 1 day (g = 0.69) than under 1 day (g = 0.41), but still reliable at short intervals; individual studies at intervals of minutes range from reliable effects to null or reversed ones. → Rowland 2014

Evidence¶

Rowland 2014¶

Rowland, C. A. (2014). The effect of testing versus restudy on retention: A meta-analytic review of the testing effect. Psychological Bulletin, 140(6), 1432–1463. doi:10.1037/a0037559

q3 · i? · quant-synthesis · r3

Meta-analytic review of testing versus restudy (159 effect sizes from 61 studies). Its introduction summarises the literature: there is substantial agreement that testing effects emerge after days or weeks, many researchers have seen smaller, null or reversed effects at intervals of minutes, and numerous other studies show reliable effects at those intervals, so the form of the interaction "has not been firmly established". The meta-analysis's own categorical moderator analysis found larger effects at intervals of at least 1 day (g = 0.69, CI [0.56, 0.81]) than under 1 day (g = 0.41, CI [0.31, 0.51]), and the authors conclude that "testing reliably benefits retention compared with restudy even at short intervals." No single magnitude for the moderation itself is printed, so i?.

"many researchers have observed that testing effects are of lesser magnitude, null, or even reverse to restudy advantages, at short retention intervals on the order of minutes"

Studies bearing on this claim¶

How does the benefit depend on the delay before the final test? This table gathers the studies behind this claim and the 8 narrower claims that bear on it: 5 distinct studies (2 quant-synthesis, 2 review, 1 causal), q2–q4, 2 of 5 with an effect size coded. One row per study, codes as each entry records them; no effect is averaged and no verdict is drawn. Built by scripts/synthesize_claim.py from eval/synthesis/; a row that looks wrong is fixed on the claim it comes from.

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Several candidate moderators show no reliable effects: retention interval, test type, presentation mode, and publication status — related
• The pretesting effect on text memory grows with retention interval, being largest at one week — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Retrieval practice improves long-term retention — related
• Retrieval practice effects are larger at retention intervals greater than 1 day (g = 0.69) than at intervals less than 1 day (g = 0.41) in Rowland's (2014) meta-analysis — related
• The testing effect is largest at a retention interval of 1–6 days (g = 0.82) and robust across all intervals — related
• The retrieval (TTST) advantage appeared at both short (5 min) and long (24 h) retention delays, with no reliable evidence that it differed between them — reports the opposite
• Retrieval practice produces reliable positive effects at short delays, although some forgetting must set in so that the final test is not at ceiling — related
• Learning-technique effects do not shrink across test delays from the same day to six months — reports the opposite
• Retrieval practice produces better retention than restudying, with meta-analytic reviews reporting people 2.5 times as likely to remember tested information and medium-to-large classroom effects — related
• The effect of retrieval practice format on reading comprehension does not differ significantly between an immediate and a three-week-delayed final test — related
• Repeated retrieval practice alters the rate at which learned items are forgotten, according to learn-to-criterion studies and forgetting-curve analyses the chapter reviews — related
• Testing benefits retention over a conservative restudy control, establishing the testing effect as robust — related
• Retrieval interval length may moderate the testing effect in mathematics: restricting to intervals over one day raises the effect to g = 0.378 (exploratory). — related
• Testing effect disappears for a coherent complex text but reappears, as reduced forgetting, when the same sentences are scrambled — related