Should we do tests?

Being directly relevant to what we do, and what you are likely to be doing elsewhere for some years to come, "To Really Learn, Quit Studying and Take a Test" in The New York Times caught my eye. And it gave me something to think about as I was reading it.

Pam Belluck reports on some recent research which "[shows] that practicing retrieval produces greater gains in meaningful learning than elaborative studying with concept mapping" (Karpicke & Blunt, 2011). That is, taking tests to check what you have remembered actually helps you to learn better than spending a lot of time on making neat summaries, outlines, charts and other forms of concept mapping. As Belluck notes, the "study supports findings of a recent spate of research showing learning benefits from testing, including benefits when students get questions wrong" (2011, p.2, ¶ 1). Possible explanations for these results are that the act of retrieving something from memory changes, strengthens, the memory, and that making the effort to get it out of memory also helps to strengthen the ability to retrieve it later.

This interested me because we do both things in our classes: the summarizing and outlining you are doing this weekend are two concept mapping type activities, and on Monday morning you are doing a written test. I think we will continue doing both. It is clearer in the original paper by Karpicke and Blunt, but the research was limited to science learning; that is, to remembering scientific facts and their connections to theory, to each other and to other sets of facts. What we do in AEP isn't really aimed at learning anthropology, economics or whatever. I hope you find the material at least somewhat interesting and that you do learn something that might be worth learning, but our primary goals are to practice useful skills to enable better, more fluent and more confident reading and writing; we are not, for example, at AUA to memorize grammar rules, vocabulary or fascinating details about Nuchanulth house floor plans (I'm not going to test you on that, and it won't worry if  you forget it next week). Memorizing the rules of football might be very important, but knowing the rules cannot make you a good player unless you practice. You have to actually kick the ball and play real games to become a good football player. Similarly, great piano playing might need you to learn some rules about reading music, but the most important thing is to sit down in front of a piano every day and actually do it: play the piano. Reading and writing are the same: they are skills where there are important rules to learn, but the most important thing is to sit down every day (my suggestion is every day) and actually practise, and that means reading something new in English and writing something new in English. Of course, football players need feedback from an observant coach as much as piano players need tips on improving performance from a skilled teacher, which is why we spend time in class looking very critically (OALD, def.4) at the work you have done, both the reading and your writing. And on Monday, we will be doing more of that. And a test.

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References

Belluck, P. (2011, January 20). To Really Learn, Quit Studying and Take a Test. The New York Times. Retrieved January 21, 2011 from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/science/21memory.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1

Karpicke, J.D. & Blunt, J.R. (2011, January 20). Retrieval Practice Produces More Learning than Elaborative Studying with Concept Mapping [Abstract]. Science. retrieved January 20, 2011 from http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/01/19/science.1199327.abstract