Should You Use Frequent Quizzing in Your College Course? Giving up 20 Minutes of Lecture Time May Pay Off

摘要

This study examined whether frequent testing would promote long-term retention of college-level course material. Students in a college course engaged in three different types of interval practice over the course of a 13-week semester: quizzes, quizzes with feedback, and study. We examined the impact of type of interval practice on performance on unit exams. Six exams were given that consisted of multiple choice (MC) questions presented during earlier practice, new highly related MC questions, and new highly related short answer (SA) questions. The variation in type of unit exam questions allowed for the examination of interval quiz-related transfer to related MC and related SA questions. Further, half of the unit exams were taken individually and half were taken collaboratively. This manipulation allowed us to examine post-collaborative facilitation. Results suggest that interval quizzing resulted in beneficial transfer effects to highly related MC and SA questions and post collaborative facilitation.