When it comes to evidence-based study tips. Active recall and spaced repetition have become the two big hitters. But there's actually a third high impact strategy that often doesn't get its fair mention. Which is sad because it can boost your exam score by more than 10%. And that can be the difference between passing or failing, the difference between a B and an A, and the difference between a 2:1 and a 1st. So what is this strategy? Let's meet "The Testing Effect".

Today we're talking about evidence-based study tips, but instead of rehashing the same active recall, spaced repetition mantra, I want to talk about the "Testing Effect" and in a nut-shell, we should be testing ourselves like all the time, before learning and after learning.

We often think of testing as a method to check understanding and memory of something. Like it's always the end-goal tool. We might do a practice test a few weeks or just a week before the actual exam. But, by not testing ourselves more, we're actually wasting one of, if not the most powerful evidence-based study tool. So today, I want to talk about what the testing effect actually means, why and when we should be testing ourselves, importance of feedback and then finally talk about the practicalities of how to use this "testing effect" as part of our learning and revision process. As always I'll include timestamps to all the topics below so you can jump to whatever section interests you the most.

So what actually is the testing effect. Well, the testing effect is the concept of taking practice-tests or quizes before or after learning material. Which then improves your retention of the material, allowing you to remember more of the things you learn and score a higher mark when you're tested further down the line during a final-test. When you do the practice-test before you actually learn something, this is know as the Pre-testing effect. And when you do the practice-test after you learn something, then this is known as the post-test effect.

Testing sometimes gets merged with active recall and sometimes both terms are used interchangeably. But actually testing is so much more. Active recall in my opinion is far less exam focussed and much more material focussed in its set-up. So active recall is great for initial learning and retention, but the more exam-focussed testing effect sets you up much more nicely for exams themselves. But we'll come to this point later on when we discuss the practicalities. Now let's look at the evidence behind this testing-effect and see if it's legit and also decide when best to use it.

So let's talk about an experiment that was done quite recently actually just last year in 2019 by Alice Latimer and colleagues , that compared repeated reading vs pre-testing vs post-testing.

The study recruited 285 participants with little prior knowledge about biology or DNA and split them into 3 groups, the control, pre-test and post-test. The participants had to attend a training day and then a final test day a week later.

The control - (Reading-reading) on the training day they had to read modules 1-7 about DNA. Then when they got to the end, they had to repeat the process again and re-read module 1-7.

The Pre-test - (quiz-reading) on the training day this group did a 38 question quiz about DNA before learning anything about it and were given feedback (as in if they answered correct or not and what the actual answer was). Then they went on to read module 1-7 about DNA.

The Post-test - (reading-quiz) this group on the training day read module 1-7 about DNA and then did the exact same 38 question quiz with feedback.

Then after 7 days, they were all invited back to do a 52 question final test with no feedback this time.

They found that the control group (reading-reading) group scored 46%. The pre-test group (quiz-reading group) scored 50% and the post-test group (reading-quiz) scored the highest 56%.

To see how large the differences are between the group, there's a statistical analysis you can run which gives an effect size. An effect size of 0.2 means there's a small difference between 2 group, 0.5 is medium and 0.8 is large. So when they ran the analysis comparing pre-test to the control and post-test to the control. They found that the effect size for pre-test was d=0.35 and d=0.74 for post-test.

So from this experiment it looks like post-test or testing yourself after learning the material is better than pre-test or taking the test before being exposed to the material, but pre-test is better than just re-reading the material. And this has actually been supported by meta-analytic studies that look at loads of studies, combines their data and analyses them, which in terms of scientific research is the highest level of evidence.

Feedback
Next I want to talk about the importance of feedback.vWhenever we do any practice-tests, a crucial step in the testing-effect that gives as the maximal results is to mark the tests and give ourselves feedback. Research has shown that this is a crucial step and people perform the best when they get feedback. For example a study found that in the final test, students scored 11% with no practice-test, 33% when given practice-test with no feedback, 43% when given practice-test with immediate feedback after each question, and 54% when given delayed feedback after answering all the practice-test questions. So the research shows that testing, even without feedback is better that not testing yourself, but delayed feedback gives you the best results. So practically, go that extra step and actually mark the practice-test questions at the end for the best results in the final test.

Practicalities

How to test yourself
Ok, so we know that testing ourselves is good, testing ourselves after exposing ourselves to the material is better than doing tests before, but doing tests before is better than just re-reading the material. But how do we test ourselves? Like what do we mean when we say "yeah test yourself"?

There are 2 things you can do. One is to create questions for yourself as you read the content, this is similar to the Cornell-Note taking system, but here you're not taking any notes but are just writing out questions. Now, this is okay and likely will be more tailored to the notes and will help you learn the material relatively well. But, the draw-backs are the time spent making these questions and also our lack of expertise. What I mean by this is that we are the ones setting the exam questions, so some of the questions we set may not be exam-focussed or relevant and may focus on the wrong things. So for me personally, the time cost of making the questions myself and also the lack of exam-focus means that I don't use this system. Instead I use past exam questions. I'd go on the university website and get a hold of past exam questions to do with that subject or topic I'm learning. Before I even sit down to read the material, I read through some of the exam questions (maybe 3-5) to get a feel for what things they focus on and how they ask questions. Then I read the material and answer a different set of questions. Then I look up the correct answers using a mark scheme or the lecture material to get feedback on my answers. I found that incorporating past exam questions and testing as part of my learning process quite early on, relieved a lot of anxiety and made me feel much more prepared as the actual exams approached. Because my whole learning had been exam focussed from day one. I was learning with the exam in mind and not just learning for the sake of it. I know this doesn't sound great, but at the end of the day, if the goal is to do well in exams, then you have to prepare with that goal right from the beginning.

So yes practically, I'd use past exam questions relevant to the topic I'm studying, I'll read 3-5 before exposing myself to the learning material to get a feel for things, then read the material, then answer the exam questions, and finally mark them and give myself feedback.

So practically what should we do? The reality is that we want the most bang for our buck. And the buck is our time. So which tactic is going to give the best result in the least amount of time. If you have plenty of time and you're starting your journey of learning, understanding and memorisation early then pre-test, read the material, and post-test will be the best tactic to maximise your retention and maximise your marks. If time is not on your side then skip to reading the material and test yourself afterwards.

Final Thoughts

Try it out and see what impact it has on your performance. If you're looking for more evidence-based or personal study tips, then check out this video about the mistakes I was making and changes I made to correct them. If you've enjoyed this video, don't forget to like and hit subscribe. But that's it from me for today and I'll see you guys next time.