Testing benefits retention over a conservative restudy control, establishing the testing effect as robust¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · quant-synthesis r? · q4
Currency · newest study 2014 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q4 i? Positive testing effects obtain even when testing is compared with an equal duration of restudy, firmly establishing the robustness of the testing effect. → meta-1

Evidence¶

meta-1¶

Rowland, C. A. (2014, August 25). The Effect of Testing Versus Restudy on Retention: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Testing Effect. Psychological Bulletin. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037559

q4 · i? · quant-synthesis · r?

Meta-analysis of testing versus equal-duration restudy comparisons; the author states that "positive effects under these conservative conditions firmly establishes the robust character of the testing effect" and that practical effects may be larger.

"The observation of positive effects under these conservative conditions firmly establishes the robust character of the testing effect, and one can reasonably expect that the practical application of the procedures investigated may yield substantially larger effects."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Retrieval practice improves long-term retention — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
• Retrieval practice and spaced retrieval improve achievement and retention by medium amounts, while interleaving helps category learning only for some materials and blocking beats it for words — possibly the same claim (merge candidate)
• 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
• Retrieval Practice Improves Transfer — related
• 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 — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• 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 — related
• The testing effect for mathematics learning (testing versus restudy, g = 0.22) is not robust, as its 95% confidence interval crosses zero. — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Testing effect disappears for a coherent complex text but reappears, as reduced forgetting, when the same sentences are scrambled — reports the opposite
• Across eight delayed-test comparisons, testing showed a small numerical advantage over restudy, but confidence intervals were wide and the combined effect imprecise — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Individual differences were not associated with the retention benefit of relearning over restudying — related
• End-of-semester recall of course material was better for relearning than for restudying — a narrower finding that bears on this claim