Pop Culture

Probably not what you want to hear, but Kent State University recently released a study that proves pop quizzes and other practice tests assist in learning and information retention. Researchers found that students create clues and other tricks to help jog memory, inventing keywords that eventually lead them to the correct answer. Sound familiar? By taking quizzes and other self-given practice tests, students can create and reevaluate clues, professionally coined “mediators,” all of which help them on future exams that really count for something.

To test the theory, researchers gave 118 undergraduate students a set of 48 Swahili words and meanings to memorize. The selection of students quizzed before the test far outperformed students who did not receive a preliminary quiz. Students who were administered the pop quiz recalled nearly three times as many words as their counterparts who studied without taking a similar pretest.

Researchers found that merely reading and highlighting information creates an illusion of information comprehension. So while students believe to be absorbing information, their lack of retrieval testing might negatively affect future test performance.

So how can you, as a student, benefit from KSU’s research? For one, supplement reading information by creating study guides that can be used for practice testing. Try covering the correct answer when rereading information to test your recall ability.

And should you come across a professor with a quiz-happy teaching policy, avoid giving him that infamous stink eye. You should instead be giving him props for improving both your memory and test performance.