The Testing Effect: Long-Term Memory

The testing effect is a common strategy found in various classroom settings whereby the long-term memory increases through the sequence of learning, testing, and feedback . Experiments have repeatedly confirmed that testing on studied material furthers learning and retention of that material (Darley & Murdock, 1971; Hanawalt & Tarr, 1961; McDaniel, Kowitz & Dunay, 1989). Customarily, when testing, different methods such as multiple-choice testing, short-answer testing, feedback, no feedback, delayed feedback, retrieval practice and recall are considered. One prevalent theory introduced by McDaniel, et al. (2007) is that the testing effect is most advantageous if it generates learning from a more complicated piece of information instead of just recalling (p. 496.). The different processing that transpires during retrieval has an impact on memory and knowledge retention when compared to only re-studying; this boosts the accessibility of information when retrieving from the memory, therefore, diminishing the forgetting curve (Karpicke & Roediger, 2007). The testing effect is beneficial and can be

According to Sweller (1998) human information processing has three parts: sensory memory, working memory and long-term memory. Information from the sensory memory passes into the working memory where it is processed or forgotten, the working memory can retain limited chunks of information at one time (Sweller, Merrienboer & Paas, 1998). Sweller et al. (1998) state that once the brain processes the information in the working memory it is then categorized and passed into the long-term memory whereby the knowledge is constructed into schemas. Consequently, the schemas organize the processed information which is dependent on how we use it. The more we use schemas the better the results are when trying to recall that piece of information (Sweller, Merriënboer & Paas,