Event Title
An Examination of Individual Differences in the Testing Effect
Location
Parker-Reed, SSWAC
Start Date
1-5-2014 1:00 PM
End Date
1-5-2014 2:00 PM
Project Type
Poster
Description
Retrieval practice has a greater benefit on final testing compared to restudying or rereading material (Roediger et al., 2011). This is known as the Testing Effect. The Testing Effect is very robust and has been observed in middle-school children, college students, and older adults. It occurs for paired associates, prose passages, visual materials (maps, Chinese characters), and foreign language vocabulary. However, there is limited work examining individual differences in the effectiveness of retrieval practice in terms of cognitive ability (Dunlosky et al., 2013). The current study compares repeated study and repeated testing in students with various learning differences and students from the general population. Students with learning differences (LD) present a mixed etiology (e.g., Attention Deficit Disorder, Dyslexia, Reading Disorders) and often require support and accommodations for learning. Participants studied Swahili-English words pairs and then either restudied the pairs three more times, or took three cued recall tests. A final test was administered after two days. We are also measuring a number of cognitive and behavioral domains (working memory, reasoning, grit, need for cognition, study habits, etc.). The ultimate goals of our research are to examine whether retrieval practice is effective for students with various types of learning and processing styles and what cognitive abilities predict performance in testing situations.
Sponsoring Department
Colby College. Psychology Dept.
CLAS Field of Study
Social Sciences
Event Website
http://www.colby.edu/clas
ID
640
An Examination of Individual Differences in the Testing Effect
Parker-Reed, SSWAC
Retrieval practice has a greater benefit on final testing compared to restudying or rereading material (Roediger et al., 2011). This is known as the Testing Effect. The Testing Effect is very robust and has been observed in middle-school children, college students, and older adults. It occurs for paired associates, prose passages, visual materials (maps, Chinese characters), and foreign language vocabulary. However, there is limited work examining individual differences in the effectiveness of retrieval practice in terms of cognitive ability (Dunlosky et al., 2013). The current study compares repeated study and repeated testing in students with various learning differences and students from the general population. Students with learning differences (LD) present a mixed etiology (e.g., Attention Deficit Disorder, Dyslexia, Reading Disorders) and often require support and accommodations for learning. Participants studied Swahili-English words pairs and then either restudied the pairs three more times, or took three cued recall tests. A final test was administered after two days. We are also measuring a number of cognitive and behavioral domains (working memory, reasoning, grit, need for cognition, study habits, etc.). The ultimate goals of our research are to examine whether retrieval practice is effective for students with various types of learning and processing styles and what cognitive abilities predict performance in testing situations.
https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/clas/2014/program/262