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The benefits of testing for learning on later performance
Meghan M McConnell1, Christina St-Onge, Meredith E Young
1Program for Educational Research and Development, Faculty of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, MDCL 3510, Hamilton, ON, Canada, mcconn@mcmaster.ca.
Educational activities like short-answer questions (SAQs) and context-rich multiple-choice questions (MCQs) significantly improve learning retention compared to studying alone or context-free MCQs. This test-enhanced learning (TEL) benefit was most pronounced for verbatim questions on a mock medical licensure exam.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Educational Psychology
- Medical Education
Background:
- Test-enhanced learning (TEL) improves information retention beyond traditional studying.
- Production-based tests (e.g., short-answer questions/SAQs) yield greater TEL effects than recognition-based tests (e.g., multiple-choice questions/MCQs).
- Recent licensure exams distinguish between context-rich MCQs (knowledge application) and context-free MCQs (fact recognition).
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how different educational activities influence performance on a mock medical licensure examination.
- To compare the effectiveness of studying, SAQs, context-rich MCQs, and context-free MCQs on learning retention.
Main Methods:
- Fourth-year medical students (n=224) from four Quebec universities participated.
- Students completed four educational activities: reading-based, SAQs, context-rich MCQs, and context-free MCQs.
- Performance was assessed on a mock licensure exam featuring both verbatim and new context-rich MCQs.
Main Results:
- Higher accuracy scores on the mock exam followed context-rich MCQs (M=0.40) and SAQs (M=0.39) compared to context-free MCQs (M=-0.38) or studying (M=-0.42).
- This benefit was significant for verbatim items (p < 0.001) but not for new items.
- TEL benefits were observed for response generation (SAQs) and knowledge application (context-rich MCQs) on verbatim questions.
Conclusions:
- Context-rich MCQs and SAQs enhance learning and retention more effectively than context-free MCQs or studying alone.
- The observed benefits of these testing formats were limited to verbatim questions on the mock licensure exam.
- Further research is needed to determine if these findings generalize to novel test items.
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