An Ecologically Valid Study of the Testing Effect across Academic Disciplines: A Focus on Higher- vs. Lower-Level Learning

Abstract

Past research indicates that the testing effect is an effective tool to improve memory and retention and academic performance, however, very few studies have investigated the effects across academic disciplines with a focus on higher- vs. lower-level learning. Therefore, in the current study, we sought to examine whether the testing effect occurs across multiple academic disciplines in higher education (e.g., psychology, criminal justice, modern languages, and industrial design). Second, we aimed to determine if the testing effect differentially affects the level of learning between higher versus lower-level questions. Our results indicate students greatly benefit from test enhanced learning across multiple academic disciplines and that test enhanced learning significantly increases both higher- and lower-level thinking. Our study further demonstrated the utility and effectiveness of test enhanced learning in the college and university classroom.

Keywords:

• Test enhanced learning
• testing effect
• higher-level learning
• lower-level learning

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 We first conducted analysis for each individual course type. We found that there were no differences in results among Psychology, Criminal Justice, Industrial Design, and Modern Languages courses (ps > .05) and that the same result was consistent throughout these different course types. Thus, we combined across all four course types.