Benefits of testing memory: Best practices and boundary conditions

The idea of a memory test or of a test of academic achievement is often circumscribed. Tests within the classroom are recognized as important for the assignment of grades, and tests given for academic assessment or achievement have increasingly come to determine the course of children’s lives: score well on such tests and people advance, are placed in more challenging classes, and attend better schools. Psychologists have studied the effects of testing on later memory, of and on, for 100 years. The power of testing to increase learning and retention has been demonstrated in numerous studies using a diverse range of materials; but both study and test materials come in a multitude of formats. A recent study delved more deeply into the issue of whether the kind of test influences the testing effect. The great bulk of the literature on testing effects shows the benefit of a single initial test relative to either no test or to reading control condition.

Duke Scholars

Author Elizabeth J. Marsh Psychology & Neuroscience