Testing Effect - How self-testing helps memory improvement

The word ‘test’ alone is probably enough to strike fear into the heart of even the most nerveless of students. Yet research shows that tests can help improve our long-term memory and our ability to retrieve important information when we need it.
We all have our own study strategies, with specific habits, quirks and routines that we feel work best for us. But there is a mounting body of evidence to suggest that the traditional approach to learning may not be as effective as we once believed. In fact, if you find yourself reading until your eyes are almost ready to pop out of their sockets as you approach exam time, then it’s likely you’re doing things wrong.

The Testing Effect

Tests are widely considered to be ends rather than means. We use them to show us how much we know (and in some cases, how much we don’t!), but more and more psychologists are advancing the notion that tests can be far more useful to us than this. ‘How?’ you ask. Well it seems they can actually help improve long-term memory. This makes them ideal for language learning or storing key facts and dates. Which makes it all the more of a shame that they’re either under-utilized, or not utilized in a more effective way.

For instance, while students may have their own unique study habits, their overall approach to study generally looks quite similar:

Study, study, study, test.

Or it can look like this:

Study, test, study, test.

However, according to researchers, what it should look like is this:

Study, test, test, test.

That’s because studying in this way is a more effective method for making information stick. Psychologists call this the ‘Testing Effect’.