The forward testing effect on self-regulated study time allocation and metamemory monitoring.

Abstract

The forward testing effect describes the finding that testing of previously studied information potentiates learning and retention of new information. Here we asked whether interim testing boosts self-regulated study time allocation when learning new information and explored its effect on metamemory monitoring. Participants had unlimited time to study five lists of Euskara-English word pairs (Experiment 1) or four lists of face-name pairs (Experiment 2). In a No Interim Test group which was only tested on the final list, study time decreased across successive lists. In contrast, in an Interim Test group, which completed a recall test after each list, no such decrease was observed.Experiments 3 and 4 were designed to investigate the forward testing effect on metamemory monitoring and found that this effect is associated with metacognitive insight. Overall, the current study reveals that interim tests prevent the reduction of study time across lists and that people's metamemory monitoring is sensitive to the forward benefit of interim testing. Moreover across all four experiments, the Interim Test group was less affected by proactive interference in the final list interim test than the No Interim Test group. The results suggest that variations in both encoding and retrieval processes contribute to the forward benefit of interim testing.Keywords: forward testing effect; self-regulated learning; encoding; retrieval; metamemory monitoring Forward testing effect 3With the increasing popularity and availability of free online courses and learning aids, selfregulated learning is taking place more and more outside of the formal classroom (Bjork, Dunlosky, & Kornell, 2013). To use these opportunities effectively, learners must understand how to regulate their behaviour to optimize learning, comprehension, and knowledge transfer. However, recent studies reveal that we are far from being sophisticated learners (for a review, see Bjork et al., 2013).Therefore, self-regulated learning has become a significant focus of theoretical and empirical research for both psychologists and educators.A few studies have been conducted employing interim tests to optimize self-regulated learning of previously studied or tested information (Karpicke, 2009;Soderstrom & Bjork, 2014). But no research has yet been undertaken employing interim tests to optimize self-regulated learning of new information. One aim of the current study is to fill this gap. Specifically, we explored how interim tests influence subsequent self-regulated study time allocation when learning new information. Backward testing effectIn educational settings, testing is usually regarded as an evaluative instrument to assess learning and comprehension. A large body of research has supplied convincing evidence that testing is also an effective instrument to facilitate long term retention (for a review, see Roediger & Karpicke, 2006a). The common finding that retrieval of previously studied information enhances its retention by comparison with restudying that informat...

Testing potentiates new learning across a retention interval and a lag: A strategy change perspective

“…Moreover, Davis and Chan (2015) did not provide direct evidence of strategy change, because they did not measure the amount of time that participants devoted to relearning of the face-name association relative to new learning of the face-profession association. Lastly, although the findings that prior testing increases test expectancy (Weinstein et al, 2014) and new-learning duration (Gordon et al, 2015;Yang et al, 2017) signal a shift in strategy, these findings do not provide evidence that the strategy change is qualitative in nature.…”

“…For example, taking a test increases learners' expectation that they will be tested again in the near future (Weinstein et al, 2014). Perhaps partly because of this increased test expectancy, when learners were allowed to self-regulate their study duration, those who received interpolated tests spent longer to study new information than those who did not (Gordon & Thomas, 2014;Gordon, Thomas, & Bulevich, 2015;Yang, Potts, & Shanks, 2017).…”

The anchoring effect in metamemory monitoring

“…Scheck et al proposed that participants might base their JOLs on their beliefs about the percentage of items they can usually remember (e.g., 50%; M. Carroll, Nelson, & Kirwan, 1997), and this Banchor^then biased their JOLs. Anchoring has also been proposed as a possible cause of other metamemory illusions (e.g., Dunlosky & Matvey, 2001;Yang et al, 2017a).…”

“…A large body of previous studies has shown that people's metamemory monitoring (i.e., metacognitive judgments about memory) can often be relatively accurate (for a review, see Rhodes, 2016). For example, people predict that difficult items are less likely to be remembered, and their predictions about their future memory performance are positively correlated with their actual test performance (Scheck, Meeter, & Nelson, 2004;Yang, Potts, & Shanks, 2017a, 2017b. Nonetheless, recent research has revealed that a range of factors may bias people's metamemory monitoring.…”

“…Besides miscalibration of metamemory monitoring, people's metamemory control (i.e., strategic choices such as restudy decisions and study time allocation) is intimately related to metamemory monitoring (Metcalfe & Finn, 2008;Rhodes & Castel, 2009;Yang et al, 2017a), and miscalibrated metamemory monitoring often leads to inefficient metamemory control (Kornell & Bjork, 2008b;Soderstrom & Bjork, 2014;Yang et al, 2017a). If a learner believes, for instance, that massed learning is more effective than spaced learning (metamemory monitoring; Kornell & Bjork, 2008a;Yan, Bjork, & Bjork, 2016), she is likely to structure her learning in an inefficient way by exposing herself to massed rather than to spaced materials (metamemory control; Tauber, Dunlosky, Rawson, Wahlheim, & Jacoby, 2013).…”