Do Students Effectively Regulate Their Use of Self-Testing as a Function of Item Difficulty?

Abstract

Retrieval practice is beneficial for both easy-to-learn and difficult-to-learn materials, but scant research has examined students’ use of self-testing for items of varying difficulty. In two experiments, we investigated whether students differentially regulate their use of self-testing for easy and difficult items and assessed the effectiveness of students’ self-regulated choices. Undergraduate participants learned normatively easy and normatively difficult Lithuanian-English word pair translations. After an initial study trial, participants in the self-regulated learning groups chose whether they wanted to restudy an item, take a practice test, or remove an item from further practice. Participants chose to test items repeatedly while learning but dropped both easy and difficult items after reaching a criterion of about one correct recall per item. Consequently, final test performance 2 days later was lower for difficult items versus easy items, and performance was lower in the self-regulated learning group than in an experimenter-controlled comparison group (in Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, we tested hypotheses for why participants reached a similar number of correct recalls for both easy and difficult items. Three new groups included different scaffolds aimed at minimizing potential barriers to effective regulation. These scaffolds did not change participants’ learning choices, and as a result, performance on difficult items was still lower than on easy items. Importantly, participants planned to continue practicing items beyond one correct recall and believed that an optimal student should practice difficult items more than easy items, but they did not execute this plan during the learning task.

How do Students Regulate Their Use of Multiple Choice Practice Tests?

“…Consistent with predictions from the test-to-monitor hypothesis, participants chose several practice tests per item, but typically stopped engaging with items after about one correct response. These results are representative of findings from other self-testing research in which participants were given a similar amount of control over their learning (Ariel & Karpicke, 2018 ; Badali et al, 2022 ; Janes et al, 2018 ; Karpicke, 2009 ; Kornell & Bjork, 2008 ; for a review of the accumulating evidence consistent with the test-to-monitor hypothesis, see Rivers, 2021 ). In summary, the test-to-monitor hypothesis motivates the expectation that students will reach the same criterion (one correct response per item) when they are using multiple-choice practice tests or cued-recall practice tests.…”

Pan, Dunlosky, Xu, & Ouwehand (2024) Emerging and Future Directions in Test-Enhanced Learning Research

“…An empirical study by Badali et al (2023) and a commentary by Murphy et al ( 2023) provide useful insights into how practice testing can be applied more effectively. Badali et al investigates how learners use multiple-choice practice tests during self-regulated learning and researcher-controlled conditions, and in so doing provides preliminary answers to the question, Do students' regulate their use of testing in an effective manner?…”

Teachers’ and students’ evaluations of the effectiveness of learning strategies: An overview of the results of Estonian schools

“…Enesetestimist on võima lik läbi viia mitmel viisil, näiteks vastates kordamisküsimustele, lahen dades teste või ülesandeid, kirjutades üles, mida õpitust mäletatakse (McDaniel et al, 2011;Roediger & Karpicke, 2006). Enesetestimine toetab õpitu mõistmist ja hilisemat kasutamist (Badali et al, 2022;Rodriguez et al, 2021).…”

“…Seega on oluline õpetada õpilastele õppetöö planeerimist ja sealhulgas ka ees märkide seadmist (Yeo & Fazio, 2019). Need oskused on olulised toetamaks just ennast reguleeriva õppija kujunemist ning seejärel on võimalik edasi liikuda keerulisemate õpistrateegiate õpetamise ja kasutamise suunas (Badali et al, 2022;Brod, 2020).…”