Retrieval practice produces reliable positive effects at short delays, although some forgetting must set in so that the final test is not at ceiling¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · review r3 · q2–q3
Currency · newest study 2017 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? The chapter reports that Rowland's (2014) analysis indicates reliable positive effects at short delays, provided final test performance is not at ceiling. → Karpicke 2017 q2 i? The chapter argues that apparent short-delay advantages of restudy arise because restudy reexposes all materials, biasing comparisons toward repeated study. → Karpicke 2017 (2)

Evidence¶

Karpicke 2017¶

Karpicke, J. D. (2017). Retrieval-Based Learning: A Decade of Progress. Learning and Memory: A Comprehensive Reference, 2nd edition, Volume 2. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-809324-5.21055-9

q3 · i? · review · r3

The chapter rejects the view that benefits appear only after a delay, reporting that Rowland's (2014) analysis "indicates that there are reliable positive effects at short delays"; no separate effect size is printed for this point.

"Rowland’s (2014) analysis indicates that there are reliable positive effects at short delays. It is true that some forgetting needs to set in, so that final test performance is not at ceiling, for retrieval practice effects to be observed in the short term."

Karpicke 2017 (2)¶

Karpicke, J. D. (2017). Retrieval-Based Learning: A Decade of Progress. Learning and Memory: A Comprehensive Reference, 2nd edition, Volume 2. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-809324-5.21055-9

q2 · i? · review · r3

The chapter's own methodological argument: because restudy reexposes the whole set while retrieval reexposes only what is recalled, "comparisons of retrieval practice and repeated study conditions are biased in favor of repeated studying".

"Because of differences in reexposure to the materials across conditions, comparisons of retrieval practice and repeated study conditions are biased in favor of repeated studying."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• 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 — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
• Retrieval Practice Improves Retention
• Retrieval practice effects on mediator-cued final tests have been positive, but Coppens et al. (2016) concluded the true effect may be only about 0.10 to 0.20 — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• 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
• 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
• A review reports that retrieval practice effects grow more robust as initial retrieval success rises, especially above 75%, and separately that giving more retrieval cues yields smaller effects — related
• The argument that retrieval practice effects do not occur with materials high in element interactivity is contested, and the chapter judges its research base not convincing — related
• Testing benefits retention over a conservative restudy control, establishing the testing effect as robust — related
• The testing effect is largest at a retention interval of 1–6 days (g = 0.82) and robust across all intervals — related
• Offering a monetary incentive in both test and study conditions strengthens the case that testing has a true learning advantage over motivated restudy — 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 — related
• Repeated test-restudy trials produced higher final cued recall than study-only or single test-restudy controls across both experiments — related
• The retrieval benefit occurs at the level of individual items, not through general practice at retrieval — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• 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
• Retrieval practice yields better delayed test performance than restudy (the testing effect) in both experiments — related
• Retrieval-practice-first sequences show small advantages over generative-first in some conditions — related