Prior episodic learning and the efficacy of retrieval practice

Mohan W Gupta; Steven C Pan; Timothy C Rickard

doi:10.3758/s13421-021-01236-4

Prior episodic learning and the efficacy of retrieval practice

Mem Cognit. 2022 May;50(4):722-735. doi: 10.3758/s13421-021-01236-4. Epub 2021 Sep 20.

Authors

Mohan W Gupta¹, Steven C Pan^{2

3}, Timothy C Rickard⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0109, USA.
² Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
³ Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
⁴ Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0109, USA. trickard@ucsd.edu.

Abstract

In three experiments we investigated how the level of study-based, episodic knowledge influences the efficacy of subsequent retrieval practice (testing) as a learning event. Possibilities are that the efficacy of a test, relative to a restudy control, decreases, increases, or is independent of the degree of prior study-based learning. The degree of study-based learning was manipulated by varying the number of item repetitions in the initial study phase between one and eight. Predictions of the dual-memory model of test-enhanced learning for the case of one study-phase repetition were used as a reference. Results support the hypothesis that the advantage of testing over restudy is independent of the degree of prior episodic learning, and they suggest that educators can apply cued-recall testing with the expectation that its efficacy is similar across varying levels of prior content learning. Implications for testing effect theory are discussed.

Keywords: Cued-recall; Dual-memory model; Individual differences; Prior knowledge; Retrieval practice; Testing effect.

MeSH terms

Cognition
Cues
Humans
Learning
Memory, Episodic*
Mental Recall*