Does Retrieval Practice Work in Real Classrooms?
Jonathan Firth's Memory & Metacognition Updates #137
Hello! New term/semester, and I’m back after a bit of a break to discuss research on retrieval practice – in particular, classroom evidence for the technique.
As you probably know, retrieval practice is the process of actively recalling information to mind, for example when a learner self-tests or answers a teacher’s questions (see update #36).
For example, if I had asked you to remember what retrieval practice means rather than summarising it for you, it would have been an example of retrieval practice in action!
Retrieval from memory can happen in many situations. While we often associate it with quizzes, students also retrieve from long-term memory during activities such as discussions.
Classroom evidence
As you may know, much of the key research on retrieval practice – for example the work of Roediger and Karpicke (2006) – has been done in laboratory settings and on college students. It’s therefore worth asking what this looks like in real classrooms and across different age ranges. Are the same benefits still found?
This was the question asked in a review by Moreira and colleagues (Moreira et al., 2019), which included both children and older students. All of the studies reviewed were in authentic classroom settings.
A nice aspect of the study was that it separated out different ways of implementing retrieval practice.
The main findings were that:
Multiple-choice tests showed strong benefits;
Gap-fill tasks also helped, and more so if feedback was given, though only two studies had used gap fills;
Short-answer tests showed mixed results especially among younger students, with benefits clearer if feedback was provided;
For free recall tasks, the evidence was very limited, despite this being a widely used approach in lab studies.
Impact on children
On balance, the study endorses the use of retrieval practice when teaching children. It did express some concerns about the benefits of short-answer questions, but this largely focused on studies that did not provide feedback on answers, which is unlikely to happen in real classrooms.
I also think that the difficulty level of short-answer questions is hard to calibrate, and we know that in general, desirable difficulties can become undesirable if they are too challenging.
What is the comparison?
Probably the issue that has given me the most food for thought from this paper is the question of what retrieval practice should be compared to in classroom-based studies, including the presence or absence of feedback.
In lab settings, it’s common not to give feedback (i.e. to tell participants what the correct answer was after an attempt), as this can make it unclear whether it was the process of retrieval or the repetition of the correct information that made a difference.
However, in real classrooms, however, I’d imagine that it’s overwhelmingly common that students do get feedback after a quiz, meaning that failing to provide this makes the setting less authentic.
So, what should be the condition to which retrieval is compared? In lab studies, it’s often silent re-reading. But how likely is it that teachers choose to do this instead of giving students a more active task?
It probably depends on the context, and I’d be interested to hear your thoughts. For me, the key thing is that retrieval is compared to something that a teacher might reasonably choose to do with the same class and the same period of time. Studies that have compared it with concept mapping (discussed in update #23) are a good example of this.
When educators plan and teach, they are constantly choosing between one option and another, and we need to have studies that mimic these choices in an authentic way. This review highlighted a shortage of such studies. However, there have been relevant new publications since the review was done, and I’ll return to those soon!
The reference is below.
Moreira, B. F. T., Pinto, T. S. S., Starling, D. S. V., & Jaeger, A. (2019). Retrieval practice in classroom settings: A review of applied research. Frontiers in Education, 4(5).
All the best for the coming week,
Jonathan
Last time: Applying Cognitive Science to Questioning: Timing
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