I’m on a quest for ways to get students using those study strategies that make them better learners. When the strategy goes by the label “test-enhanced learning” it isn’t an easy sell, and it’s even ...
There’s plenty of good research on study strategies that promote learning. It’s also well-documented that students don’t always use them. As most of us are well aware, procrastination gets in the way of learning. Cramming ...
Download a self-check quiz for students, plus a look at key research findings Most of us need no research evidence to document that students are using their phones and attempting to multitask in class. We see ...
An article in a recent issue of the International Journal of STEM Education has got me thinking about study habits and how little we know about how students study. The article is open-access, and I encourage ...
When an exam approaches, virtually all students agree they need to study and most will, albeit with varying intensity. Most will study the same way they always have—using the strategies they think work. The question ...
Here’s one of those articles that really shouldn’t be missed, particularly for those with interest in making teaching and learning more evidence-based. Current thinking about evidence-based teaching and learning tends to be more generic than ...
Most college faculty are terribly well-intentioned. We care about student success. The material in our courses is important; we want students to learn it. And so, we go out of our way, bend over backwards, ...
To remediate the exam preparation study skills that beginning (and other) students are missing, most of us respond by telling students about those skills that make for good exam performance. “Come to class.” “Take notes.” ...
To: My Students From: Your Professor Re: Studying for Finals The end of the semester is rarely pretty. You’re tired; I’m tired. You’ve got a zillion things to get done—ditto for me. You’ve also got grades hanging in ...
By the third or fourth week of most courses, students have had a reality check. They have taken the first exam, received feedback on their first paper, or otherwise discovered that the course isn’t quite ...
I’m on a quest for ways to get students using those study strategies that make them better learners. When the strategy goes by the label “test-enhanced learning” it isn’t an easy sell, and it’s even harder when students find out that means asking and answering potential test questions when they study. They’d much rather “look over” their notes, “look up” test question answers, and “look at” what they’ve highlighted in the reading. Asking and answering test questions means they have to “look into” the content, which is precisely why this strategy improves test scores.
That was recently verified in a study that involved first-year medical students enrolled in a biochemistry course. After a module of instruction, students took a multiple-choice pretest. Then they were given an hour to study the module material, either with self-directed study or by completing an open-book short-answer test. After the study session, students took another multiple-choice test on the content. The students who studied with the open-book test, scored higher on their final multiple-choice test. It’s a robust, but rather complicated study design with lots more details than there’s room for here.
What intrigued me about the study was that students were using their textbooks and notes to answer the short-answer questions. I wonder if some form of this activity might be used in an in-class or online review session or maybe even outside of class. Students could use their notes and the book to answer a set of questions, individually or with others, and making a good faith effort to do so gets them a few bonus points. This approach won’t be an option for most faculty if it means having to grade a second set of exams so it must be managed as a formative activity with no or very minimal feedback. I know, it does sound a lot like those study guide questions teachers provide and students don’t do. The key may be describing it as an exam and formatting that makes it look like a test.
I learned of another good option in a very short piece (Locklin, 2019) which describes a quiz strategy that also leans in the direction of test-enhanced learning. Students have eight minutes at the beginning of a period to do a quiz with three true/false, three multiple-choice, and four short-answer questions. They’re allowed to consult their books and notes during the final three minutes of the quiz time. The quizzes are “graded” immediately with the teacher providing the correct answers for about half the questions. The other half, always including the short-answer questions, are discussed, with evidence for various answer gathered and considered. The quizzing strategy is used in a religion course so there may be some questions with more than one single right answer.
The quiz is printed front and back of a single sheet of paper. Quiz questions are on one side of each page with ample space across from each question for students to take notes during the discussion of answers. After discussion the quizzes are collected and marked for participation with most of the credit going for the quality of the notes and not the correctness of the answers. It’s an interesting use of quizzes that also gets students answering questions in a more substantive way.
If you opt to use either of these approaches, you can’t promise students higher exam scores. But there’s a reasonably good chance that their scores will improve. The evidence that supports the test-enhanced learning strategy is extensive. More significantly, options like those described here demonstrate the value of studying with test questions. But don’t expect students to see that value and hurry home to study using them. To students, it looks like more work and it is. But if they want to learn the material in ways that will improve their exam scores, test-enhanced learning works a lot better than passively reviewing (“going over”) the content. Just be sure you point that out, maybe more than once.
References: Bobby, Z. and Meiyappan, K. (2018). “Test-Enhanced” focused self-directed learning after the teaching modules in biochemistry. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 46 (5), 472-477.
Locklin, R. (2019). The (mostly) unmarked quiz. Teaching Theology and Religion, 22 (1), 55.