The Mnemonic Effects of Testing

Mr. Jason C. K. CHAN
Ph.D. Candidate in Psychology
Washington University

Abstract

Educators typically think of testing as a way to assess students‘ knowledge. However, other than assessing knowledge, testing also modifies memory. In fact, testing is perhaps one of the best ways to enhance later memory performance. This testing benefit has been shown under many conditions. But it is unclear whether the benefits of testing occur only for the items that are repeated on multiple tests. Moreover, classroom tests can assess students' knowledge of only a subset of the materials taught in a course. Therefore, one important question is, "what are the implications of testing on the nontested material?"