Let students experience the differential test advantage of generation before expecting them to adopt better reading strategies¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 1 claim (1 mixed) · 1 study (1 causal), q3 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description¶

The article's applied recommendation is that "students may need to experience for themselves the differential advantage of generation in the context of an actual test for them to realize its effectiveness as an encoding strategy." Learning exercises that only require generation improve memory for generated items but are unlikely to induce better strategies for reading. Designers should therefore interleave generated and read items within the same study episode and test them together, so learners observe the performance contrast directly.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Generated and read items must be experienced and tested within the same test context so the differential memorial consequence is observable

Constraints¶

• Exercises that merely require generation, without a comparative test experience, are not expected to induce improved reading strategies

Target Learners¶

• students learning from textbook material

Target Learning Goals¶

• improving encoding strategies for reading new material
• long-term retention of studied material

Claims¶

• Experiencing a generation advantage on a first test eliminates the generation advantage on a subsequent test by improving recall of read items [~W]

Related Strategies¶

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• deWinstanley, P. A., & Bjork, E. L. (2004). Processing strategies and the generation effect: Implications for making a better reader. Memory & Cognition, 32(6), 945-955. https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03196872