Combine free-recall tasks followed by short-answer questions to cover both broad understanding and key information¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 3 claims (3 for) · 1 study (1 causal), q2 · 1 of 1 report an effect size · 3 claims rest on one study

Description¶

For materials with some very important information where overall understanding also depends on broad knowledge, the article recommends applying both task formats: "students might first work on free-recall tasks to deepen their overall understanding. Then, they could answer short-answer questions to consolidate the most important key information." The authors note this mix of specific and unspecific recall tasks may explain why mixed-format tests showed higher weighted mean effect sizes in a recent meta-analysis they cite.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Learning content must contain both a broad set of information and a set of very important key units

Constraints¶

Target Learners¶

• university students
• school students

Target Learning Goals¶

• broad retention of expository content
• consolidation of key information

Claims¶

• Holistic retrieval via free-recall improves retention of non-targeted information, but only on the free-recall posttest [+W]
• Targeted retrieval via short-answer tasks improves metacognitive calibration more than holistic retrieval via free-recall [+W]
• Targeted retrieval via specific short-answer tasks improves retention of directly targeted information more than holistic retrieval via free-recall tasks [+W]

Related Strategies¶

• Match Retrieval Task Type To Educational Goals

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Tino Endres, Lena Kranzdorf, Vivien Schneider, Alexander Renkl. (2020). It matters how to recall – task differences in retrieval practice. Instructional Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-020-09526-1