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Critical role of retrieval practice in retention

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Psychology (PSYCH101)

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The critical role of retrieval practice in

long-term retention

Henry L. Roediger III

1

and Andrew C. Butler

2
1 Department of Psychology, Box 1125, Washington University, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130-4899, USA
2 Psychology & Neuroscience, Duke University, Box 90086, Durham, NC 27708-0086, USA
Learning is usually thought to occur during episodes of
studying, whereas retrieval of information on testing
simply serves to assess what was learned. We review
research that contradicts this traditional view by dem-
onstrating that retrieval practice is actually a powerful
mnemonic enhancer, often producing large gains in
long-term retention relative to repeated studying. Re-
trieval practice is often effective even without feedback
(i. giving the correct answer), but feedback enhances
the benefits of testing. In addition, retrieval practice
promotes the acquisition of knowledge that can be
flexibly retrieved and transferred to different contexts.
The power of retrieval practice in consolidating memo-
ries has important implications for both the study of
memory and its application to educational practice.
Introduction
A curious peculiarity of our memory is that things are
impressed better by active than by passive repetition.
I mean that in learning (by heart, for example), when
we almost know the piece, it pays better to wait and
recollect by an effort within, than to look at the book
again. If we recover the words the former way, we
shall probably know them the next time; if in the
latter way, we shall likely need the book once more.
William James[1]
Psychologists have often studied learning by alternating
series of study and test trials. In other words, material is
presentedforstudy(S)andatest(T)issubsequentlygivento
determine what was learned. After this procedure is repeat-
ed overnumerous ST trials, performance (e. the number of
items recalled) is plotted against trials to depict the rate of
learning;theoutcomeisreferredtoasalearningcurveandit
isnegativelyacceleratedandisfitbyapowerfunction,
most learning occurs on early ST trials, and the amount of
learning decreases with additional trials. The critical as-
sumption is that learning occurs during the study phases of
the STST ST... sequence,and the test phaseis simply there
tomeasurewhathasbeenlearnedduringpreviousoccasions
of study. The test is usually considered a neutral event. For
example, researchers in the 1960 s debated whether learn-
ing occurs gradually (e. through continual strengthening
of memory traces) or in an all-or-none fashion, but they
focused on study events as the locus of the effects and
ignored the possibility that learning occurred during the
retrieval tests[2–5]. Exactly the same assumption is built
into our educational systems. Students are thought to learn
via lectures, reading, highlighting, study groups, and so on;
tests are given in the classroom to measure what has been
learned from studying. Again, tests are considered assess-
ments, gauging the knowledge that has been acquired with-
out affecting it in any way.
In this article, we review evidence that turns this conven-
tional wisdom on its head: retrieval practice (as occurs
during testing) often produces greater learning and long-
term retention than studying. We discuss research that
elucidates the conditions under which retrieval practice is
most effective, as well as evidence demonstrating that the
mnemonic benefits of retrieval practice are transferrable to
different contexts. We also describe current theories on the
mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of testing.
Finally,wediscusseducationalimplicationsofthisresearch,
arguing that more frequent retrieval practice in the class-
room would increase long-term retention and transfer.
The testing effect and repeated retrieval
The finding that retrieval of information from memory
produces better retention than restudying the same infor-
mation for an equivalent amount of time has been termed
the testing effect[6]. Although the phenomenon was first
reportedover100yearsago[7],researchonthetestingeffect
has been sporadic at best until recently (but seeBox 1for
someclassicstudies).Inthelast10years,muchresearchhas
shown powerful mnemonic benefits of retrieval practice
[8–10]. The data inFigure 1come from a study in which
two groups of students retrieved information several times

Review

Glossary

Expanding retrieval schedule: testing of retention shortly after learning to make sure encoding is accurate, then waiting longer to retrieve again, then waiting still longer for a third retrieval and so on. Feedback: providing information after a question. General (right or wrong) feedback is not very helpful if the correct answer is not provided. Correct answer feedback usually produces robust gains on a final criterion measure. Negative suggestion effect: taking a test that provides subtly wrong answers (e. true or false, multiple choice) can lead students to select a wrong answer, believe it is right, and thus learn an error from taking the test. Retrieval practice: act of calling information to mind rather than rereading it or hearing it. The idea is to produce ‘an effort from within’ to induce better retention. Test-enhanced learning: general approach that promotes retrieval practice via testing as a means to improve knowledge. Testing effect: taking a test usually enhances later performance on the material relative to rereading it or to having no re-exposure at all. Transfer: ability to generalize learning from one context to another or to use learned information in a new way (e. to solve a problem). Corresponding author:Roediger, H. III (roediger@wustl).

20 1364-6613/$–see front matterß2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2010.09 in Cognitive Sciences, January 2011, Vol. 15, No. 1

duringlearningandtwoothergroupsweretreatedsimilarly
but only practiced retrieval once[11]. The figure shows
performance on a final test given 1 week later. The two
groups that practiced retrieval (without feedback) during
learning(thetwoleftbars)recalledsubstantiallymoreofthe
pairs than the other two groups. In addition, the groups
represented by the two dark blue bars were permitted to
study the material several more times than the groups
represented by the light blue bars. Yet, repeated study
led to virtually no improvement a week later. Retrieval
practice provides much greater long-term retention than
does repeated study[11–16].
The finding that retrieval practice increases retention
raises two important questions. First, what are the best
conditions for retrieval? The sooner retrieval is attempted
afterastudytrialoracorrectretrieval,themorelikelyitisto
be successful. Short delays between retrievals might foster
errorless retrieval. However, it might be that retrieval of
information aftera shortdelay is too much like rote rehears-
al, which often produces little or no mnemonic benefit[17].
Second, how many retrievals are needed to maximize long-
term retention? Retrieval practice takes time, so if only one
or two retrievals is enough, then practice can be terminated
[18,19].
The questions just raised are thorny ones and might
depend on the type of materials, the characteristics of the
learner and other factors (for a discussion see[20]). Howev-
er, a recent study gives a tentative answer to both questions
[21]. Students learned 70 Swahili–English word pairs via
repeated practice at retrieving the English word when pre-
sented with the associated Swahili word. Both the time
between successive retrievals (1 min or 6 min) and the
number of successful retrievals (1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 10) were
manipulated during the initial practice phase 2
shows performance on a final test given after a delay of
either 25 min (top two lines) or 1 week (bottom two lines).
Regardless of the timing of the final test, retrieval practice
with 6-min intervening intervals (red lines) led to better
retention relative to retrieval practice with 1-min interven-
ing intervals (blue lines). With respect to the number of
Box 1. Classic studies of the testing effect

The idea that retrieval practice facilitates retention is old. Some 2300 years before the quote from James that begins this article, Aristotle wrote that ‘Exercise in repeatedly recalling a thing strengthens the memory.’ The first empirical evidence that he was right was provided 100 years ago[7], but other studies were more influential. Six classic studies are described in brief: (i) Gates showed large effects of recitation (retrieval) relative to studying in children in grades 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8 for both nonsense words and brief biographies[92]. He argued that building recitation into the curriculum would benefit learning and retention in the schools. (ii) Jones investigated the effect of testing on retention of lecture material by college students[93]. His impressive series of experiments demonstrated the benefits of retrieval practice in both the classroom and the laboratory. (iii) Spitzer tested 3605 6th graders by having them read 600 word passages and taking tests with various schedules before taking a final test approximately 2 months later[94]. Spitzer showed that testing (retrieval) without feedback enhanced final performance when the initial test occurred within a week or so after learning. (iv) Tulving examined learning of word lists and showed that test events could lead to as much learning as study events[95]. (v) Glover provided evidence to support the idea that successful retrieval is the critical mechanism that produces the mnemonic benefits of testing, ruling out an alternative ‘amount of processing’ explanation[64]. His article, entitledThe ‘testing’ phenomenon: not gone but nearly forgotten, helped to revive interest in the testing effect. (vi) Carrier and Pashler conducted a careful series of experiments to correct various defects in prior work and confirmed that retrieval helps later retention[65]. Their paper prompted modern interest in retrieval as a powerful mnemonic aid.

[()TD$FIG]

.80.
.36.
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.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Proportion correct on final test
Learning condition
Repeated retrieval One retrieval

TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences

Figure 1. Recall after a week for Swahili–English word pairs (mashua–boat) learned with retrieval practice (left bars) or with only a single recall (right bars). Retrieval practice doubled recall on the final test when students were given the Swahili word and asked to recall the English word. The dark blue bars indicate groups to which many more study trials were given than to the groups represented by light blue bars. Repetition of studying had virtually no effect on recall a week later, unlike repeated retrieval. Error bars represent standard errors of the mean. Figure adapted from[11].

[()TD$FIG]

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
1.
3 5 6 7 8 10
Proportion of items correctly
recalled on final test
Criterion level during practice
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
1.
1 3 5 6 7 8 10

TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences

Figure 2. Recall after 25 min (top two lines) or 1 week (bottom two lines) after varying numbers of correct recalls in an earlier phase of the experiment. When 6 min occurred between retrievals (red lines), performance was better than when only 1 min occurred between tests (blue lines). When only a short interval occurred between retrievals, even recalling the pair ten times failed to improve retention a week later. Figure adapted from[21].

take every year[45]. Although the potential for negative
effects from multiple-choice tests is a real problem, the
good news is that there is a simple solution: provide
students with feedback. If feedback is provided after a
multiple-choice test, the negative effects are completely
nullified[46]. Thus, whereas feedback is helpful for all
types of tests, it is especially important for multiple-choice
and other recognition tests that can lead students to learn
incorrect information.
Another critical question is the timing of feedback. Con-
ventional wisdom and studies in behavioral psychology
indicate that providing feedback immediately after a test
is best[27,47]. However, experimental results show that
delayed feedback might be even more powerful. In one
study, students read passages and then either took or did
not take a multiple-choice test[16]. For students who took
the test, one group received correct answer feedback imme-
diately after making a response (immediate feedback) and
the other group received the correct answers for all ques-
tions aftertheentiretest (delayedfeedback).Oneweekafter
the initial learning session, students took a final test in
which they had to produce a response to the question that
had formed the stem of the multiple-choice item (i. they
had to produce the answer rather than selecting one from
among several alternatives). The final test consisted of the
same questions from the initial multiple-choice test and
comparable questions that had not been tested.
Figure 3shows the results for the final test. Taking an
initial test (even without feedback) tripled final recall
relative to only studying the material. When correct an-
swer feedback was given immediately after each question
in the initial test, performance increased another 10%.
However, feedback given after the entire test boosted final
performance even more. The finding that delayed feedback
led to better retention than immediate feedback under-
mines the conventional idea that feedback must be given
immediately to be effective. Although giving the answers to
questions soon after a test is still relatively immediate
feedback, the superiority of delayed feedback has been
replicated numerous times with longer delays[48–51].
The benefits of delayed feedback might represent a type
of spacing effect: the phenomenon whereby two presenta-
tions of material given with spacing between them gener-
ally leads to better retention than massed (back-to-back)
presentations[52–55].
Retrieval practice enhances transfer of learning
Are the mnemonic benefits of testing limited to the learn-
ing of a specific response? One criticism that could be
leveled at research on the testing effect is that retrieval
practice merely teaches people to produce a fixed response
when given a particular retrieval cue, so the procedure
simply amounts to drill and practice of a particular re-
sponse. Thus, a key question is whether testing also pro-
motes transfer of knowledge; that is, can the knowledge
gained through testing be flexibly used to construct new
responses and answer different questions? Transfer of
learning is of critical interest for both theories of memory
and educational policy[56]. Researchers have recently
begun to explore whether retrieval practice can promote
transfer of learning in different contexts[57–59].
For example, Butler[60]investigated whether repeated
testing produces better transfer than repeated studying in a
series of experiments. In one of the experiments, students
studied six prose passages, each of which contained several
critical concepts (among other information). A concept was
operationally defined as information that had to be
extracted from multiple sentences. Next, the students re-
peatedlyrestudiedtwoofthepassages,repeatedlyrestudied
isolated sentences that contained the critical concepts from
another two passages, and repeatedly took a test on the
critical concepts for another two passages. After each test

[()TD$FIG]

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
No test Test with no
feedback
Test with immediate
feedback
Test with delayed
feedback
Proportion correct on final test
Learning condition

TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences

Figure 3. Proportion of correct responses on the final cued recall test as a function of initial learning condition. All conditions involving an initial test led to greater final recall than in the No Test condition, but feedback after the initial test led to greater final recall. In addition, delayed feedback (given on each item after the test) led to better recall than did immediate feedback (given after each question was answered). Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. The figure represents data in Table 2 from[46].

question, students received feedback that was essentially
thesameinformationasthatpresentedintheconditionwith
the restudied isolated sentences. Thus, the key difference
between the restudy isolated sentences condition and the
repeated testing condition was that students attempted to
retrieve the information in the latter condition before get-
ting it to restudy. One week later, students took a final test
that required application of each critical concept from the
passagestoa new inferentialquestionfromthe sameknowl-
edge domain. Examples of materials are shown inBox 2.
Figure 4shows results for the final test. Interestingly,
there was virtually no difference between the two repeated
study conditions even though studying the isolated sen-
tences ostensibly allowed for more time to learn the critical
concepts than studying the entire passage. This result
fits well with the findings of other studies demonstrating
that restudying provides limited benefits for retention
(Figure 1)[61]. More importantly, repeated testing led to
significantly better transfer than either repeated studying
of the passages or repeated studying of the isolated sen-
tences. This finding indicates that the mnemonic benefits
of testing extend well beyond the retention of a specific
response. In fact, a subsequent experiment in the same
series showed that repeated testing produced better trans-
fer relative to repeated studying on new inferential ques-
tions about different knowledge domains (e. applying
knowledge about echolocation in bats to sonar in submar-
ines), a situation that constitutes far transfer according to
one definition[56].
Theories of the retrieval practice effects
Researchers have intensively studied the effects of retriev-
al practice and today we know much about conditions that
produce the effect. However, theoretical understanding–
or even proper theories of the effect–has lagged behind.
One idea sometimes invoked to explain retrieval practice
(testing) effects is that such practice simply permits re-
exposure to material and causes overlearning of the set of
material that can be retrieved[62,63]. Many experiments
have discredited this hypothesis by showing that equating
the number of study events to test (retrieval) events does
not eliminate the effect[6,64,65]. The data inFigure 2also
show that this idea must be wrong, because with number of
retrievals equated at various levels, some conditions pro-
duced huge retrieval practice effects and others none at all.
In general, theoretical explanations for retrieval prac-
tice (testing) effects have focused on how the act of retrieval
affects memory. One idea is that retrieval of information
from memory leads to elaboration of the memory trace and/
or the creation of additional retrieval routes, which makes
it more likely that the information will be successfully
retrieved again in the future[22,66,67]. A related idea
invokes the notion of retrieval effort to explain the positive
effects of retrieval practice[21,68]. Retrieval effort can be
thought of as an index of the amount of reprocessing of the
memory trace that occurs during retrieval: the more effort
involved in retrieving the memory, the more extensive is
the reprocessing (which presumably involves elaboration).
As discussed above, retrieval practice that occurs under
conditions in which information can be easily accessed (e.
from short-term or working memory) leads to little or no
benefit for long-term retention (Figure 2). Yet another
explanation relies on the concept of transfer-appropriate
processing[69,70], which holds that memory performance
is enhanced to the extent that the cognitive processes
during learning match those required during retrieval.
The processes engaged by taking an initial test provide
a better match with final test than the processes involved
in studying the material.
The new theory of disuse of Bjork and Bjork incorpo-
rates these ideas to provide a more formal explanation of
retrieval practice effects[71]. The theory distinguishes
between storage strength (relative permanence of the
Box 2. Sample materials from Butler[60]

The passages used in the study covered a range of topics. The questions below are samples from a passage about bats.

Initial test Question: Some bats use echolocation to navigate the environment and locate prey. How does echolocation help bats to determine the distance and size of objects? Answer: Bats emit high-pitched sound waves and listen to the echoes. The distance of an object is determined by the time it takes for the echo to return. The size of the object is calculated by the intensity of the echo: a smaller object will reflect less of the sound wave, and thus produce a less intense echo.

Final transfer test Question: An insect is moving towards a bat. Using the process of echolocation, how does the bat determine that the insect is moving towards it (i. rather than away from it)? Answer: The bat can tell the direction that an object is moving by calculating whether the time it takes for an echo to return changes from echo to echo. If the insect is moving towards the bat, the time it takes the echo to return will get steadily shorter.

[()TD$FIG]

.41.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Re-study
passages
Re-study
sentences
Repeated
test
Proportion correct on final test
Learning condition

TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences

Figure 4. Proportion of correct responses on the final cued recall test as a function of initial learning condition. The retrieval practice (testing) conditions led to greater transfer relative to repeated restudying of whole passages or restudying of just the sentences containing the critical concepts. Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. Figure adapted from[60].

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Critical role of retrieval practice in retention

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The critical role of retrieval practice in
long-term retention
Henry L. Roediger III
1
and Andrew C. Butler
2
1
Department of Psychology, Box 1125, Washington University, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130-4899, USA
2
Psychology & Neuroscience, Duke University, Box 90086, Durham, NC 27708-0086, USA
Learning is usually thought to occur during episodes of
studying, whereas retrieval of information on testing
simply serves to assess what was learned. We review
research that contradicts this traditional view by dem-
onstrating that retrieval practice is actually a powerful
mnemonic enhancer, often producing large gains in
long-term retention relative to repeated studying. Re-
trieval practice is often effective even without feedback
(i.e. giving the correct answer), but feedback enhances
the benefits of testing. In addition, retrieval practice
promotes the acquisition of knowledge that can be
flexibly retrieved and transferred to different contexts.
The power of retrieval practice in consolidating memo-
ries has important implications for both the study of
memory and its application to educational practice.
Introduction
A curious peculiarity of our memory is that things are
impressed better by active than by passive repetition.
I mean that in learning (by heart, for example), when
we almost know the piece, it pays better to wait and
recollect by an effort within, than to look at the book
again. If we recover the words the former way, we
shall probably know them the next time; if in the
latter way, we shall likely need the book once more.
William James [1]
Psychologists have often studied learning by alternating
series of study and test trials. In other words, material is
presented for study (S) and a test (T) is subsequently given to
determine what was learned. After this procedure is repeat-
ed over numerous ST trials, performance (e.g. the number of
items recalled) is plotted against trials to depict the rate of
learning; the outcome is referred to as a learning curve and it
is negatively accelerated and is fit by a power function. Thus,
most learning occurs on early ST trials, and the amount of
learning decreases with additional trials. The critical as-
sumption is that learning occurs during the study phases of
the ST ST ST...sequence, and the test phase is simply there
to measure what has been learned during previous occasions
of study. The test is usually considered a neutral event. For
example, researchers in the 1960 s debated whether learn-
ing occurs gradually (e.g. through continual strengthening
of memory traces) or in an all-or-none fashion, but they
focused on study events as the locus of the effects and
ignored the possibility that learning occurred during the
retrieval tests [2–5]. Exactly the same assumption is built
into our educational systems. Students are thought to learn
via lectures, reading, highlighting, study groups, and so on;
tests are given in the classroom to measure what has been
learned from studying. Again, tests are considered assess-
ments, gauging the knowledge that has been acquired with-
out affecting it in any way.
In this article, we review evidence that turns this conven-
tional wisdom on its head: retrieval practice (as occurs
during testing) often produces greater learning and long-
term retention than studying. We discuss research that
elucidates the conditions under which retrieval practice is
most effective, as well as evidence demonstrating that the
mnemonic benefits of retrieval practice are transferrable to
different contexts. We also describe current theories on the
mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of testing.
Finally, we discuss educational implications of this research,
arguing that more frequent retrieval practice in the class-
room would increase long-term retention and transfer.
The testing effect and repeated retrieval
The finding that retrieval of information from memory
produces better retention than restudying the same infor-
mation for an equivalent amount of time has been termed
the testing effect [6]. Although the phenomenon was first
reported over 100 years ago [7], research on the testing effect
has been sporadic at best until recently (but see Box 1 for
some classic studies). In the last 10 years, much research has
shown powerful mnemonic benefits of retrieval practice
[8–10] . The data in Figure 1 come from a study in which
two groups of students retrieved information several times
Review
Glossary
Expanding retrieval schedule: testing of retention shortly after learning to
make sure encoding is accurate, then waiting longer to retrieve again, then
waiting still longer for a third retrieval and so on.
Feedback: providing information after a question. General (right or wrong)
feedback is not very helpful if the correct answer is not provided. Correct
answer feedback usually produces robust gains on a final criterion measure.
Negative suggestion effect: taking a test that provides subtly wrong answers
(e.g. true or false, multiple choice) can lead students to select a wrong answer,
believe it is right, and thus learn an error from taking the test.
Retrieval practice: act of calling information to mind rather than rereading it or
hearing it. The idea is to produce ‘an effort from within’ to induce better
retention.
Test-enhanced learning: general approach that promotes retrieval practice via
testing as a means to improve knowledge.
Testing effect: taking a test usually enhances later performance on the material
relative to rereading it or to having no re-exposure at all.
Transfer: ability to generalize learning from one context to another or to use
learned information in a new way (e.g. to solve a problem).
Corresponding author: Roediger, H.L. III (roediger@wustl.edu).
20 1364-6613/$ –see front matter ß2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2010.09.003 Trends in Cognitive Sciences, January 2011, Vol. 15, No. 1

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