The school year is in full swing. For students, school means learning and
testing. Most students believe that
learning is the real reason that students are in school, and then they are
tested to make sure that they learned what they were supposed to have
learned.
Because students believe that learning and testing are
separate things, they often study inefficiently. A favorite mode of studying is to sit down
with a textbook and notes and to read over the chapter and class notes. Once the material looks familiar, students
assume they are done studying.
Growing evidence from a variety of researchers including
Robert Bjork at UCLA and H.L. (Roddy) Roediger at Washington University
suggests that one of the most effective ways to learn new material is to test
yourself on it.
Ideally, you start with some learning experience. Perhaps you go to a lecture or read an
article. Then, rather than just looking
over the material again some time later, actually give yourself a test. Ask yourself questions about the material you
are learning and try to formulate your own answer. When you are tested on that material again
later, your performance will be better than if you just looked the material
over again and thought about it.
A paper by Vered Halamish and Robert Bjork in the July 2011
issue of the Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition describes a number of the
advantages of studying by testing yourself over traditional methods of
studying.
The authors point out two key benefits of studying by
testing. First, the longer the delay
between studying and testing, the bigger the advantage for studying by testing
rather than traditional studying. When
the test happens immediately, then there is no big difference between the two
types of studying. When the test happens
days or weeks later, though, there is a big difference between these
conditions.
In addition, the harder the test, the bigger the advantage
of studying by testing over studying in the traditional way. If the test questions can be answered just by
recognizing the correct answer, then there is less of a difference between the
types of studying than if the test questions require the student to construct
an answer. That is, studying by testing
has a bigger advantage over traditional testing for essay questions than for
multiple choice tests.
In order for studying by testing to be effective, though, it
is important that you actually remember the information that you’re
studying. When you test yourself, you
are asking yourself questions about the material. (Many books even have sample questions you
can use.) The testing effect works
because you successfully get to the information in memory, and that makes the
memories stronger and easier to retrieve later.
Another reason why studying by testing is effective is that it
is always best to study in the way that you are going to be tested. That is, the more that the study situation
resembles the testing situation, the more likely you are to remember the
information during the test.
Putting this all together, then, when you have to learn
something new, you must be active about it.
Don’t read new material passively or just listen to someone give a
lecture. Instead, after you are exposed
to something, test yourself on it. It
takes some effort to succeed at a test you give yourself, but that effort will
be rewarded down the line.
Finally, this works even if you’re not in school. Whenever you are in a position where you have
to learn something new, don’t just study it.
Test yourself.
