By Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel

(Cover image by F1 Digitals from Pixabay)

There is plenty of research supporting retrieval practice as a learning strategy. If left to their own devices, students report using self-testing as a way to assess how much they know, but not as a learning strategy per se (1). However, self-quizzing is a valuable learning strategy and more effective than other strategies preferred by students like ‘rereading chapters and notes’. In a recent series of experiments Vaughn and Kornell (2) investigated factors of test characteristics that may be conducive in motivating students to use self-testing as a primary strategy. They started with the assumption that, in general, students enjoy being tested – as long as they feel that they can get the answer right. Thus, increasing the likelihood of getting the correct answer will sway students to choose self-testing over simple restudying.

How did the authors investigate this idea?

They set up an experiment and had participants study 60 unrelated cue-target word pairs (e.g., ‘town-scones’). After the first study round, participants were given the option to choose how they would like to continue studying each word pair. So, before each word pair was shown to them they could pick between four options, i.e., 0-letter target (‘town-______’), 2-letter target (‘town-s____s’), 4-letter target (town-sc__es), or 6-letter target (‘town-scones’). Target words were always presented on the right side of the word pair and always consisted of 6-letter words. Thus, the 6-letter target condition was essentially a restudy condition that did not involve retrieval practice. The other three conditions all involved retrieval practice of the target word to some extent – with less or more hints. The authors were interested to see which of the four options students would pick for each study trial. The graph below shows the result.

As you can see: Students picked the 4-letter option more often than any of the other options. Furthermore, students reported that the 4-letter option was “the most fun” with 71% agreement for that option compared to only 11% agreement for the 6-letter option. Interestingly, the 0-letter option received an agreement score of 0% (the 2-letter option a score of 17%). So, it seems to be the case that pure retrieval practice without hints rules self-testing out as a strategy that students would select. Consequently, providing some hints can make self-testing more enjoyable and make students select it more often when they are given the choice.

They followed up their first experiment with a second one where they only included the two extreme options for participants to choose from: 0-letter versus 6-letter option. They found that students went for the pure restudy (6-letter) option in approximately 80% of the trails versus 20% for the pure retrieval practice option (0-letter). This shows that a self-testing option that offers no hints is perceived as an unattractive option and in such a scenario, students will go for restudying as a strategy.

After establishing student preference for testing with hints, it is important to see if that kind of self-testing is actually beneficial for performance on a final test. In follow-up experiments, the authors showed that indeed all three retrieval practice options – independent of hint level (i.e., 0-, 2-, 4-letter) – increased performance on a final test given two minutes later; more than the pure restudy condition (6-letter). However, one important caveat seems to be to make sure that students actually engage in retrieval processes, i.e., actually retrieve information from memory. If, for instance, the word pairs allowed correct guessing of the target word given the cue word – instead of retrieval – providing more hints led to detrimental effects of performance.

Where does this leave us?

Motivating students to change their habits on what strategies they use is not an easy task. However, it seems to be worthwhile thinking about ways to restructure or redefine the learning environment or task characteristics in a way that changes student perception of it towards higher attractiveness and more fun. Providing hints strategically can be one way to achieve this. It increases the likelihood to get the answer right which presumably increases the positive emotions associated with it and leads students to adopt self-testing in the future. As with all implementation tips, it is crucial that the underlying cognitive processes for the benefit of self-testing is triggered in the student. For the case here: Students still need to engage in retrieval of the material and not just rely on guessing to get the answer right.

References:

(1) Morehead, K., Rhodes, M. G., & DeLozier, S. (2016). Instructor and student knowledge of study strategies. Memory, 24, 257–271.

(2) Vaughn, K. E., & Kornell, N. (2019). How to activate students’ natural desire to test themselves. Cognitive Research: Principles and implications, 4, 1-16.