Testing effects for self-generated versus experimenter-generated questions

Those familiar with the testing effect (i.e., the finding that practicing retrieval improves memory) frequently suggest that students test themselves while studying for their classes. However, it is unclear whether students benefit from testing if they are not provided with testing materials. Few studies have examined whether generating one's own test questions improves performance, and none of these studies have given participants a full retrieval opportunity. The proposed experiments bridged this gap between testing effect and question generation research by allowing participants to generate questions and attempt to answer those questions after a delay. In Experiment 1, participants generated test questions over passages and either answered their questions as they created them or after a delay. In Experiment 2, participants either generated questions and answered them after a delay (i.e., self-testing), answered experimenter- generated questions, or restudied the material. Both experiments found no benefits of self-testing compared to the other conditions. In fact, those who self-tested tended to have worse final test performance than the other conditions. Analyses of the questions that participants created suggest that students may benefit more from self-testing when they generate more questions and those questions target material that is on the final test. Although further research is needed to confirm these conclusions (e.g., longer delays between study activities and final test), the current study suggests that testing may not always benefit learning if students must create their own questions.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (M.S.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor dc:publisher

Colorado State University. Libraries

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Authors dc:creator

• Myers, Sarah J., author
• Rhodes, Matthew, advisor
• Cleary, Anne, committee member
• Folkestad, James, committee member

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.

Language dc:language.iso

eng, English

Identifier URI

https://doi.org/10.25675/3.02300

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:mountainscholar.org:10217/208464