The question
Name: ______________________ Date: ____________ Does retrieval practice beat rereading? (7 points)
Study
Source 1: Testing versus restudying a science passage
Introduction
Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke asked whether taking a test on a passage, with no feedback, helps students remember it better than studying it again.
Participants
120 undergraduates, ages 18 to 24, at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Method
Each student read two short science passages. For one passage, the student studied it for 7 minutes and then studied it again for 7 minutes. For the other, the student studied it for 7 minutes and then spent 7 minutes writing down as much as they could recall, with no feedback. Which passage got which treatment was balanced across students. Students were assigned to take a final recall test 5 minutes, 2 days or 1 week later, scored as the percent of the passage's ideas recalled.
Results
After 5 minutes, students recalled 81% of the ideas from the restudied passage and 75% from the tested passage. After 2 days: 54% restudied, 68% tested. After 1 week: 42% restudied, 56% tested.
Roediger, H. L., III, & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249-255.
Study
Source 2: Ungraded quizzes in high school biology
Introduction
Researchers tested whether short, ungraded quizzes in class improve end-of-unit test scores in a high school biology course.
Participants
96 tenth graders in four biology classes taught by the same teacher at a public high school in Ohio. Parents gave permission and students agreed to take part.
Method
For one unit, each class was randomly assigned to a review method for the last 10 minutes of every lesson. Two classes (48 students) took a 5-question ungraded quiz on the day's material and then saw the answers. Two classes (48 students) reread a summary of the same material. Three weeks after the unit ended, all students took the same 40-question unit test.
Results
Students in the quiz classes answered 79% of the unit test correctly on average; students in the reread classes answered 64%.
Invented study for practice.
| Review method | Students | Percent correct |
|---|---|---|
| Ungraded quiz, then answers | 48 | 79% |
| Reread a summary | 48 | 64% |
Study
Source 3: What students predict and what they remember
Introduction
Researchers asked whether students can tell which study method works better for them.
Participants
60 first-year college students at a university in Oregon, ages 18 to 20, who gave informed consent.
Method
Each student learned 40 Swahili-English word pairs in two ways, 20 pairs each: one set by reading the pairs four times, the other by reading the pairs once and then testing themselves three times by covering the English word. Right after studying, students predicted what percent of each set they would remember a week later. One week later they were tested on all 40 pairs.
Results
Students predicted they would remember 70% of the pairs they reread and 55% of the pairs they tested themselves on. One week later they actually recalled 30% of the reread pairs and 61% of the self-tested pairs.
Invented study for practice.
(A) Propose a specific and defensible claim based in psychological science that responds to the question: does practicing retrieval lead to better long-term memory than rereading? [1 point]
(B(i)) Support your claim using at least one piece of specific and relevant evidence from one of the sources. Cite the source. [1 point]
(B(ii)) Explain how the evidence from B(i) supports your claim using a psychological perspective, theory, concept or research finding learned in AP® Psychology. [2 points]
(C(i)) Support your claim using a different piece of specific and relevant evidence from a different source than the one you used in B(i). Cite the source. [1 point]
(C(ii)) Explain how the evidence from C(i) supports your claim using a different psychological perspective, theory, concept or research finding than the one you used in B(ii). [2 points]