Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology © 2015 American Psychological Association

2015, Vol. 1, No. 1, 72–78 2332-2101/15/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/stl0000024

TEACHER-READY RESEARCH REVIEW

Practice Tests, Spaced Practice, and Successive Relearning: Tips for

Classroom Use and for Guiding Students’ Learning

John Dunlosky and Katherine A. Rawson

Kent State University
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Several techniques have been identified that can help students of all ages and abilities
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

learn, understand, and retain materials across a wide variety of classes. Although these
techniques are not the panacea for all the learning hurdles that students must overcome,
they do offer an easy and low-cost solution to boosting student achievement in many
classes. Thus, in this teacher-ready research review, we provide some pointers about
how to use two particularly potent techniques—practice testing and spaced practice—to
improve student learning in the classroom and on how another technique—successive
relearning— can be used by your students to guide their learning outside of the
classroom.

Keywords: learning techniques, testing, spaced practice, successive relearning

Fostering student learning and success is ar- Of course, an all-purpose technique that will
guably one of the most important goals of teach- solve every problem that struggling students
ing. As teachers, we often try to discover ways have is not currently available, and we suspect it
to improve our teaching, whether it includes never will be, because even the most versatile
revamping a presentation to more clearly de- techniques have limitations. Nevertheless, sev-
scribe a concept or trying out a new demonstra- eral low-cost techniques have demonstrated
tion that shows promise for capturing students’ generality in their effects on student learning
interest. These classroom innovations will typ- and can be widely applied. Some of these tech-
ically target specific content, such as finding a niques are listed in Table 1, and in a recent
better way to describe an action potential in review (Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan, &
hopes that every student will understand it or Willingham, 2013), we evaluated the evidence
developing a demonstration that makes the prin- pertaining to how well they really work— do
ciples of reinforcement and punishment per- they improve student learning across a wide
fectly clear. Much headway can be made by variety of domains, do they help students of
improving instruction of particular concepts in different ages and abilities, and have they been
this manner, and we applaud teachers who con- shown to work when tested with actual classes?
tinue to search for the best ways to present Our intent in that review was to provide enough
difficult-to-grasp concepts. To support such ef- details about relevant evidence for each tech-
forts, we describe a complementary approach nique so that readers could decide for them-
that involves using content-general techniques selves whether a particular technique meets
that promise to help students learn a wide vari- their instructional or learning goals. Neverthe-
ety of content across many different classes. less, on the basis of how well each technique
faired with respect to the size and generalizabil-
ity of their effects—across different learners,
materials, criterion tasks, and whether they
John Dunlosky and Katherine A. Rawson, Department of worked in educational settings—we also as-
Psychological Sciences, Kent State University. signed each technique a utility rating. A high
Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-
dressed to John Dunlosky, Department of Psychological
rating indicated that positive evidence (i.e., that
Sciences, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242. E-mail: the technique boosted performance) has been
jdunlosk@kent.edu consistently found with regard to the dimen-
72
 GENERAL LEARNING TECHNIQUES 73

Table 1
Learning Techniques
Technique Utility Description
1. Elaborative interrogation Moderate Generating an explanation for why an explicitly stated fact or concept is
true
2. Self-explanation Moderate Explaining how new information is related to known information or
explaining steps taken during problem solving
3. Summarization Low Writing summaries (of various lengths) of the to-be-learned texts
4. Highlighting Low Marking (potentially important) portions of to-be-learned materials while
reading
5. Keyword mnemonic Low Using keywords and mental imagery to associate verbal materials
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6. Imagery for text Low Attempting to form mental images of text materials while reading or
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listening
7. Rereading Low Restudying text material again after an initial reading
8. Practice testing High Self-testing or taking practice tests over to-be-learned material
9. Spaced practice High A schedule of practice that spreads out study activities over time
10. Interleaved practice Moderate A schedule of practice that mixes different kinds of problem (or study of
different kinds of material) within a single study session
Note. Table adapted from Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan, and Willingham (2013).

sions above, with lower ratings (moderate or The same held for interleaving practice, al-
low) indicating either that negative evidence though this technique may quickly be on its way
was found or that sufficient evidence was cur- to earning a high rating, given exciting new
rently unavailable. The utility assessment for evidence indicating that interleaving math prac-
each technique is presented Table 1, and al- tice improves students’ performance in a class-
though interested readers will need to refer to room context (Rohrer, Dedrick, & Burgess,
the original review for details (Dunlosky et al., 2014; Rohrer, Dedrick, Stershic, in press). With
2013), we explain some of the evidence leading such caveats in mind, however, persuading stu-
to these ratings next. dents to use techniques that would foster deeper
First, research indicates that highlighting and processing of course materials—such as self-
rereading texts does not offer much in terms of explaining—is likely to be an improvement
learning benefits. Sure, it is fine if students over rereading.
highlight what they believe are the most critical Finally, and most important, two tech-
concepts in a textbook or in their notes, but niques—practice testing and spaced practice—
doing so is only the beginning of the learning received the highest marks because the evidence
journey. It is how students subsequently study consistently demonstrated benefits to students’
those important concepts that matters most, and learning across a wide variety of materials and
merely rereading the material does not offer a for learners of different ages and abilities. These
lot. Second, whereas highlighting and rereading techniques really work (for in-class demonstra-
received lower marks because they do not ap- tions, see McDaniel, Agarwal, Huelser, McDer-
pear to be that effective, other techniques re- mott, & Roediger, 2011; McDermott, Agarwal,
ceived a low or moderate rating because not D’Antonio, Roediger, & McDaniel, 2014; Roe-
enough research is currently available to know diger, Agarwal, McDaniel, & McDermott,
whether they will benefit students’ learning and 2011), and they work particularly well when
performance in actual classrooms. For instance, combined in a technique called successive re-
self-explanation and elaborative interrogation learning. Although successive relearning is not
benefited students’ learning of some materials listed in Table 1 because it was not included in
and boosted their performance on some tasks the Dunlosky et al. (2013) review, it is based on
(e.g., Pressley, McDaniel, Turnure, Wood, & combining practice testing with spacing across
Ahmad, 1987; Rittle-Johnson, 2006), but more multiple sessions, which we describe further
psychological research— especially in the class- below. Given that these techniques do work,
room—needs to be conducted before we could how can we, as teachers, use them to help
endorse these techniques with full confidence. students achieve their learning goals? In the
 74 DUNLOSKY AND RAWSON

next two sections, we offer some possible an- those based on recognition, such as some multi-
swers to this question for classroom use and for ple-choice questions do. Do not rule out using
supporting students’ self-regulated learning. multiple-choice practice tests, however, because
multiple-choice questions can be written that still
Using Practice Testing and Spacing require retrieval from long-term memory, and us-
While Teaching ing a few at the end of each class (with feedback)
or during a preexam review can improve students’
Practice tests can help students in two ways performance on the tested content on later exams
(Roediger & Karpicke, 2006). Taking a practice (McDaniel, Agarwal, Huelser, McDermott, &
test can directly benefit learning. That is, taking Roediger, 2011; McDermott et al., 2014; Roediger
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

practice tests can boost students’ learning of the et al., 2011).

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

tested information, which in turn may enhance Providing students with feedback about the cor-
performance on higher stakes exams. Taking prac- rect answers is beneficial, and the timing of the
tice tests can also indirectly benefit learning by feedback can matter, too. In contrast to our intu-
helping students figure out what they do versus do itions, it appears that delaying feedback is best in
not know, so that they can focus subsequent ef- that it can lead to greater gains than providing
forts on learning content that is less well known. feedback immediately after students answer a
In fact, this indirect effect of practice tests is practice question (for a recent review and demon-
largely why students report using them in the first stration of the benefits of delaying feedback in an
place (Kornell & Bjork, 2007; for a review, see engineering course, see Mullet, Butler, Verdin,
Bjork, Dunlosky, & Kornell, 2013)—and tests do von Borries, & Marsh, 2014). Based on these
provide a metacognitive tool that improves stu- recommendations, one option is to begin each
dents’ ability to accurately identify what they have class with a brief practice test that covers the most
not yet learned. Fortunately, when practice tests important concepts from the prior class and then
are administered and followed by feedback, stu- end the class with feedback. Doing so will ensure
dents can reap both their direct and indirect ben- that students must construct answers from long-
efits. Moreover, practice tests do more than just term memory and that they receive delayed feed-
improve students’ memory for the tested informa- back to promote learning and retention of the
tion; they also improve performance on transfer material. Your students will benefit even more
tests that tap students’ ability to use and compre- from feedback when you explain why answers are
hend the practiced content (for a recent review, correct or incorrect (Butler, Godbole, & Marsh,
see Carpenter, 2012). 2013; Moreno, 2004; Moreno & Mayer, 2007).
Here are a few pointers on how to use practice Such explanatory feedback may not only enhance
tests while teaching. One is to select the most performance compared to providing corrective
important concepts, ideas, and content for practice feedback alone (i.e., indicating whether an answer
tests. It makes no sense to choose content willy- is correct or not) but also increases the chances
nilly for practice testing, because limited time is that students will perform better on transfer tests
available for testing during a class period. Instead, of the content—a major educational goal for al-
we must decide what is most important for our most any domain.
students to learn and then emphasize these deci- During longer classes, we know that students’
sions by testing them on this content prior to minds will wander, and even teachers may need a
higher stakes exams. To get the most out of these break to refocus from time to time. To alleviate
practice tests, make sure that they are delayed these problems, consider inserting a few test ques-
sometime after the content is covered, so that tions throughout a class. These questions could
students must retrieve (or construct) the answers focus on content covered earlier in that class or
from long-term memory (Cull, 2000; Pavlik & can even be repeats of questions used in prior
Anderson, 2005). In line with this recommenda- classes. By using these interim tests, you can
tion, practice tests that require reconstruction of break the monotony a bit, reduce students’ mind
correct answers from long-term memory tend to wandering, and improve their learning. These ben-
produce larger benefits than those that require efits of interim tests were recently demonstrated
recognizing the answers (Carpenter & DeLosh, by Szpunar, Khan, and Schacter (2013), who in-
2006; Glover, 1989). So, if possible, it is better to terpolated tests during videos of online lectures.
use free recall or short-response formats than They also found that the interpolated tests reduced
 GENERAL LEARNING TECHNIQUES 75

students’ anxiety about the final cumulative tests, and 5 indicating that is exactly like me. Students’
which is an added bonus of practice testing that endorsements of the behaviors varied consider-
should be further investigated. ably, and in some cases, this variability was re-
What about spaced practice? One of the most lated to exam performance. For instance, attend-
powerful ways to enhance students’ retention of ing class was positively related to performance
important concepts is to return to those concepts (r ⫽ .24), and consistent with the review dis-
across time (for an extensive review, see Cepeda, cussed above (Dunlosky et al., 2013), highlighting
Pashler, Vul, Wixted, & Rohrer, 2006). You can was negatively related (r ⫽ ⫺.23). Most relevant
space exposure to content in numerous ways, such to the use of practice testing, the average rating for
as reviewing a few of the most important concepts “I used practice exams to study” was 3.8 with a
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

from a lecture at the end of each class or reviewing standard deviation of 1.4, indicating that some
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

those concepts at the beginning of the next class. students endorsed using practice exams, whereas
The former involves spacing within a class, and others did less so. The reported use of practice
the latter involves spacing across classes. Both exams also predicted class performance (r ⫽ .24),
should enhance students’ learning of the repeated a key outcome that was replicated in a large-scale
content, but the longer interval between classes study involving 454 students enrolled in an intro-
will likely work better for enhancing long-term ductory psychology course (Gurung, Daniel, &
retention. You can combine the benefits of both Landrum, 2012).
spaced practice and testing—a powerful duo in the Other research has asked students to note which
fight to improve student achievement— by repeat- study techniques they regularly use, and such
ing some of the practice test questions across checklist surveys again reveal that although some
classes. Besides directly enhancing students’ students endorse using effective strategies such as
learning, we suspect that reviewing some content self-testing, some students also fail to use them
across classes will also have an indirect benefit, and also perform more poorly in classes (Hartwig
because it will further emphasize the importance & Dunlosky, 2012). In a recent survey of this sort
of the content. Doing so may encourage students (Morehead, Rhodes, & DeLozier, 2015), not only
to study those materials even more as they study did students from a large state college endorse the
outside of the classroom, which we consider next. use of relatively ineffective strategies (such as
rereading), but the college professors endorsed
Supporting Students’ Use of the Techniques them, too. Thus, many students are not equipped
to Learn Course Content with effective techniques, so using some class
time to discuss which techniques work (and which
Why Students Need Instruction on do not) could pay off, and it may even be worth-
Effective Learning Techniques while to inform your colleagues about the best
techniques as well. To work, however, this in-
Students can use practice tests and spaced prac- struction may need to go beyond merely telling
tice to their advantage as well, but most students the students about what works best, because they
will likely need some encouragement and support may need scaffolding to use them effectively.
to use these techniques effectively. One difficulty One reason why scaffolding may be needed is
is that most students commonly use poor strate- that to use spacing, students should stop cram-
gies such as rereading and also cram for tests ming and begin studying earlier and regularly for
(Karpicke, Butler, & Roediger, 2009; Kornell & class exams. To do so, students need to develop a
Bjork, 2007; Taraban, Maki, & Rynearson, 1999), study schedule that minimally includes the dates
and even worse, many also believe that these of the class exams and several weekly study ses-
approaches for exam preparation are the best ones. sions for each class. For these sessions, we en-
Consider results from Gurung, Weidert, and Jeske courage students to begin by studying their notes
(2010), who developed an easy-to-use survey of and text from the immediately prior class, with an
study behaviors that can be adapted for any eye toward making sure they understand their
course. For this survey, students endorsed state- notes and the concepts discussed in class. After-
ments such as “I attended every class” or “I high- ward, they should then restudy material from prior
lighted the most important information in each classes (such as by self-testing with feedback), so
chapter to review later” on a 5-point scale, with 1 they can reap the benefits of spaced practice.
indicating that the behavior is not at all like me When we have students develop these study
 76 DUNLOSKY AND RAWSON

schedules for all of their courses, such as using a concepts well enough to retrieve them during the
paper or electronic calendar, it becomes apparent first session that they are practiced, but relearning
that many students will need to use their time them in later sessions becomes a breeze—that is,
wisely each week to succeed. You can still en- students will quickly relearn what they correctly
courage students to study some the night before an retrieved in prior sessions.
exam, such as to ward off some anxiety and to Does successive relearning really work? We
review the most important and difficult concepts. had students use successive relearning with a vir-
Although we are unaware of any large-scale eval- tual flashcard program to learn fundamental con-
uation of whether using these scaffolds (e.g., train- cepts in an introductory psychology course (Raw-
ing students to schedule time to incorporate son, Dunlosky, & Sciartelli, 2013). Students in
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

spaced practice and testing) will improve student this class used the program to successively relearn
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

achievement, the outcomes from many investiga- key concept definitions that the instructor chose as
tions (Cepeda et al., 2006) suggest that if they use being most important from different chapters (e.g.,
spaced practice throughout a course, they should confirmation bias, IQ, zone of proximal develop-
be already set for success the evening before each ment). Importantly, for each student, half of the
exam. concepts was assigned to receive successive re-
learning during practice and the other half was
The Power of Successive Relearning assigned to a baseline, “business-as-usual” control
condition (where students studied them on their
If you can convince your students to develop a own as per usual). The concepts assigned to each
study schedule that involves studying for each condition were counterbalanced across students
course at least a couple times each week, they can (i.e., the use of successive relearning was experi-
further boost their success by using practice tests mentally manipulated), so that we could evaluate
during these spaced study sessions. Doing so in- the degree to which successive relearning boosted
volves one of the most potent ways to capitalize performance above the baseline. In the successive
on testing, which is called successive relearning relearning condition, students practiced the con-
(Bahrick, 1979). Successive relearning involves cepts in synchrony with their introduction in lec-
self-testing until you can correctly recall the target tures. Students had two study sessions a week
information from memory and, critically, doing so using the successive-learning program in the lab-
in more than one practice session. For instance, oratory (Experiments 1 and 2) or unsupervised on
students could use a version of the Cornell note- their own outside of the lab (Experiment 2).
taking system in which they write down key Performance on the in-class exams for both
words in the margins of their notes that refer to successively relearned (SR) and baseline control
each of the to-be-learned concepts and then go concepts are presented in Figure 1. Across both
through each key word and attempt to retrieve and
write down the correct concept from memory.
You could also encourage students to use flash-
cards for the most important concepts. Impor-
tantly, for successive relearning, after they attempt
to retrieve each concept, they should check the
correct answer to evaluate whether they have it or
not. If they do not have it, then they should mark
that concept and return to it again later in the study
session. In addition, they should continue doing so
until they can correctly retrieve it. Once they do
correctly retrieve it, then they can remove the
concept from further practice during that particu-
lar session. The critical aspect of successive re-
learning is that all the old concepts are relearned
during the next study session (and ideally in three
to four different study sessions). It sounds like a Figure 1. Percentage performance on exam. SR ⫽ suc-
great deal of work, and admittedly, it will take cessive relearning. Adapted from data reported by Rawson,
students a large chunk of time to learn difficult Dunlosky, and Sciartelli (2013).
 GENERAL LEARNING TECHNIQUES 77

experiments and regardless of whether students Bjork, R. A., Dunlosky, J., & Kornell, N. (2013).
used the program in the laboratory or on their Self-regulated learning: Beliefs, techniques, and
own, they enjoyed more than a letter-grade boost illusions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 417–
from using successive relearning while studying 444. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-
concepts that were fundamental to the course. In 113011-143823
Butler, A. C., Godbole, N., & Marsh, E. J. (2013).
this and other studies, we have also shown that
Explanation feedback is better than correct answer
successive relearning substantially improves long- feedback for promoting transfer. Journal of Edu-
term retention up to several months later (Rawson cational Psychology, 105, 290 –298. http://dx.doi
& Dunlosky, 2011, 2013). As an anecdote, we .org/10.1037/a0031026
even had students in the laboratory tell us that they Carpenter, S. K. (2012). Testing enhances the trans-
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

were shocked about how well they could learn all fer of learning. Current Directions in Psychologi-
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

the definitions and asked whether their friends cal Science, 21, 279 –283. http://dx.doi.org/
could be part of the experiment! Most important, 10.1177/0963721412452728
you can encourage your students to use this easy Carpenter, S. K., & DeLosh, E. L. (2006). Impover-
technique, and all they need to do is to make some ished cue support enhances subsequent retention:
flashcards and develop a schedule to study and Support for the elaborative retrieval explanation of
relearn them a couple times each week. the testing effect. Memory & Cognition, 34, 268 –
276. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03193405
Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., &
Future Directions and Closing Remarks Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal
recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis.
The three techniques we discussed here— Psychological Bulletin, 132, 354 –380. http://dx
practice testing, spaced practice, and successive .doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354
relearning—are powerful and proven. Although Cull, W. L. (2000). Untangling the benefits of mul-
some of our specific recommendations for usage tiple study opportunities and repeated testing for
above were motivated by relevant evidence, much cued recall. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 14,
of this evidence was collected in laboratories us- 215–235. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-
ing relatively limited materials and methods. So, 0720(200005/06)14:3⬍215::AID-ACP640⬎3.0
there is still much to be discovered about how to .CO;2-1
best take advantage of these techniques in the Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan,
classroom. As teachers and psychological scien- M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving
tists (and we suspect many readers of this journal students’ learning with effective learning tech-
niques: Promising directions from cognitive and
will be both), we view this limitation in our
educational psychology. Psychological Science in
knowledge as an opportunity, because as we all the Public Interest, 14, 4 –58. http://dx.doi.org/
are trying out these techniques, we can conduct 10.1177/1529100612453266
relatively straightforward investigations to evalu- Glover, J. A. (1989). The “testing” phenomenon: Not
ate their efficacy. For instance, you probably can- gone but nearly forgotten. Journal of Educational
not include all the most important concepts on Psychology, 81, 392–399. http://dx.doi.org/
practice tests, which affords the possibility of ex- 10.1037/0022-0663.81.3.392
amining gains for tested (vs. nontested) concepts Gurung, R. A. R., Daniel, D. B., & Landrum, R. E.
or comparing different schedules of practice test- (2012). A multisite study of learning in introduc-
ing across classes for different subsets of concepts. tory psychology courses. Teaching of Psychology,
So many possibilities present themselves for the 39, 170 –175. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00986
use of these techniques, and we hope that this brief 28312450428
article will inspire you to try them out and even Gurung, R. A. R., Weidert, J., & Jeske, A. (2010).
Focusing on how students study. Journal of the
evaluate their efficacy as you do so.
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 10, 28 –35.
Hartwig, M. K., & Dunlosky, J. (2012). Study strat-
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0023956 Accepted February 4, 2015 䡲