Disparate Effects of Repeated Testing: Reconciling Ballard's (1913) and Bartlett's (1932) Results
Abstract
Bartlett (1932) gave subjects a prose passage and showed how recall dropped when they were tested repeatedly. Ballard (1913), using poetry, and Erdelyi and Becker (1974), using pictures, reported improvements in performance (or hypermnesia) over repeated testing. We investigated two likely factors leading to the discrepant results: the type of material and the interval between tests. The primary cause of the differing outcomes is the interval between tests. In general, when the intervals between successive tests are short improvement occurs between tests. When these intervals are long, forgetting occurs. The type of material used plays little role: Hypermnesia in recall of prose (even “The War of the Ghosts”) occurred with short intervals between tests. We also report a striking confirmation of the power of tests to enhance memory: Repeated tests shortly after study greatly improved recall a week later.
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Repeated testing promotes better retention than taking a single test.
“Repeated testing has been shown to promote better retention than taking a single test.”
From Test-enhanced learning in medical education (2008) · cites this paper as [17]
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- Authors
- Wheeler, M. A., & Roediger, H. L.
- Affiliations
- Rice University (US)
- Rice University
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 1992-07
- Volume
- 3
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 240-246
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- OpenAlex
- W1966567975
- Cited by
- 254
- References
- 30
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 24 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 33 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 17
- FWCI
- 1.49
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Functions and Memory
- Keywords
- retesting, hypermnesia, forgetting, test interval, prose recall, picture recall, memory enhancement
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