The pretesting effect - when and why tests can be beneficial for our memory even before we start learning

• Applicant: Dr. Oliver Kliegl
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 491516039

The pretesting effect refers to the finding that tests administered prior to studying material can promote later retention of that material. Studies of this effect typically compare a study-only condition – in which subjects are presented with a cue item along with a target item (plate -FORK) – with a pretest condition – in which they are first asked to guess the target item (plate - ?) before the correct answer is revealed (plate-FORK). A subsequent cued-recall test (plate - ?) often shows better recall performance for the target item in the pretest condition than in the study-only condition. Pretesting effect studies typically examine the effects of testing on later retention of the tested material, largely neglecting the issue of whether pretesting can induce also transfer of learning to other material. The proposed research project therefore will examine systematically whether pretests can boost participants’ performance in three broad categories of transfer tasks. First, Experiments 1-3 examine whether pretesting can induce transfer of learning to previously studied but untested material. These experiments also address whether transfer effects are modulated by the length of the retention interval (Experiment 1), the presence of competing material (Experiment 2), or the number of initial guessing attempts (Experiment 3). Second, using scientific texts as study material, Experiments 4-6 will investigate whether pretesting can promote transfer when conceptual questions (Experiments 4 and 5) or application questions (Experiment 6) are used on the final test. Third, Experiments 7-9 will address whether pretesting can also induce a type of negative transfer of learning – so-called test-enhanced suggestibility (TES) – by examining whether pretesting can make memory more vulnerable to subsequently studied misinformation, using either a text passage (Experiments 7 and 8) or a video (Experiment 9) as study material. In addition, it will be investigated whether the magnitude of the TES effect can be modulated when subjects are warned about the presence of misinformation (Experiment 7) or when the temporal lag between study of the original material and subsequent misinformation exposure is prolonged (Experiments 8 and 9). Overall, the proposed nine experiments are intended to provide not only a comprehensive picture of whether pretesting can induce transfer of learning, but also of the underlying cognitive mechanisms. Since test situations in educational contexts often require students to respond to questions that they have not yet encountered, the results of this project will also have critical implications for the significance of pretesting as a teaching tool.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants