It's all over the news. America is fascinated with Amy Chua's book, "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother." But, regardless of whether you are revolted by what you hear, or think there is something to hard-driving parenting, one thing is hard to dispute, the frequent testing and quizzing that is a hallmark of the Tiger Mom's academic approach has some learning benefits.
In a study published last week in the journal Science, Purdue psychologists Jeff Karpicke and Janell Blunt found that the act of retrieving information (which is part and parcel with repeated testing) leads to deeper learning and understanding of science material than just studying the material. Simply put, testing can help students learn.
Similar to the fact that simply measuring a physical object doesn't change its size or weight, we often assume that measuring what people remember won't change their memory either. This new research makes clear that this assumption is dead wrong. Instead, having to reconstruct what we know when we are tested seems to enhance learning.
To demonstrate the benefits of testing, the researchers pitted the act of retrieving information against a commonly used study technique: concept mapping. In concept mapping, students construct a diagram in which circles are used to represent concepts, and lines connecting the circles represent relations among the concepts. In essence, concept mapping drives students to notice relations among the ideas they are studying.
College students were given science text describing the functioning of, for example, the human ear or the digestive system. After studying the text for an initial period of time, some students were asked to create a concept map relating all the major ideas in the text. Others students, instead, were asked to recall as much of the information as they could from the text (similar to what one would have to do when answering a question on an actual exam). The total amount of learning time was exactly the same in the concept mapping and retrieval groups, the only difference was what they did.
One week later, everyone returned to the researchers' laboratory and took a final short-answer test on the passages they had read. Sure enough, those students who had spent time recalling information during study performed better on the test, showing almost a 50% improvement over students who had produced the concept maps.
Just to make sure that they didn't get these results by chance, the researchers did their study again with a new group of college students. The researchers found the same benefit of retrieving information - indeed 101 out of 120 students (84%) performed better on a final exam after studying via recalling information relative to studying with concept mapping. This was true even when some of the final exam questions asked that students produce concept maps of the material they had initially studied.
Interestingly, the benefits of repeated testing may extend beyond just giving students an opportunity to recall and reorganize their knowledge. As I have talked about in this blog in the past, one of the best ways to ensure that people perform at their best in important and pressure-filled situations is to "close the gap between training and competition." If recalling information during study gives students some experience with the pressures of having to retrieve information on the fly, this may help to inoculate them against the stress they may feel when asked to recall information in the real do or die exam.
So, there may be something to the Tiger Mom's practice of quizzing and testing. As it happens, when we are quizzed, it doesn't just give us a readout of what is stored in mind, it enhances learning.
For more ways to boost performance - especially on tests, check out my new book Choke.
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Karpicke, J. D., & Blunt, J. R. (2011). Retrieval Practice Produces More Learning than Elaborative Studying with Concept Mapping. Science.
