PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Researchers from Kent State University say practice tests improve memory

Researchers from Kent State University say practice tests improve memory
2010-10-15
(Press-News.org) Although most people assume that tests are a way to evaluate learning, a wealth of research has shown that testing can actually improve learning, according to two researchers from Kent State University. Dr. Katherine Rawson, associate professor in Kent State's Department of Psychology, and former Kent State graduate student Mary Pyc publish their research findings in the Oct. 15, 2010, issue of the journal Science.

"Taking practice tests – particularly ones that involve attempting to recall something from memory – can drastically increase the likelihood that you'll be able to remember that information again later," Rawson said. "Given that hundreds of experiments have been conducted to establish the effects of testing on learning, it's surprising that we know very little about why testing improves memory."

In the article titled "Why Testing Improves Memory: Mediator Effectiveness Hypothesis," Rawson and Pyc reported an experiment indicating that at least one reason why testing is good for memory is that testing supports the use of more effective encoding strategies.

Rawson offered this illustration. "Suppose you were trying to learn foreign language vocabulary," she said. "In our research, we typically use Swahili-English word pairs, such as 'wingu – cloud.' To learn this item, you could just repeat it over and over to yourself each time you studied it, but it turns out that's not a particularly effective strategy for committing something to memory.

"A more effective strategy is to develop a keyword that connects the foreign language word with the English word. 'Wingu' sounds like 'wing,' birds have wings and fly in the 'clouds.' Of course, this works only as well as the keyword you come up with. For a keyword to be any good, you have to be able to remember your keyword when you're given the foreign word later. Also, for a keyword to be good, you have to be able to remember the English word once you remember the keyword."

The research done by Rawson and Pyc showed that practice tests lead learners to develop better keywords. People come up with more effective mental hints or keywords, called mediators, when they are being tested than when they are studying only.



INFORMATION:

Rawson joined Kent State's faculty in the fall of 2004. Her grant-funded research, undertaken with colleague Dr. John Dunlosky, psychology professor and director of Experimental Training at Kent State, seeks to identify effective study strategies and study schedules for students to learn classroom material in a durable and efficient manner.

Earlier this year, Rawson traveled to the White House and received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on young professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers. Nominated by the U.S. Department of Education, Rawson was one of 100 beginning researchers named by President Barack Obama to receive this prestigious award. She resides in Stow, Ohio.

Pyc received her master's and doctoral degrees from Kent State. She worked in Rawson's cognitive psychology lab. Pyc's research interests involve promoting student learning, including when retrieval practice is beneficial for memory, evaluating theoretical accounts for why retrieval practice is beneficial for memory, how students self-regulate learning, and how students' metacognition is related to their self-regulated learning. She is now a postdoctoral fellow at Washington University.

For more information about Kent State's Department of Psychology, visit www.kent.edu/CAS/Psychology.

[Attachments] See images for this press release:
Researchers from Kent State University say practice tests improve memory

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Yale scientist helps pinpoint threats to life in world's rivers

2010-10-15
The food chain - the number of organisms that feed on each other — in the world's streams and rivers depends more upon the size of the stream and whether the waterways flood or run dry than the amount of available food resources, Yale University and Arizona State University (ASU) researchers report online in the Oct. 14 issue of the journal Science Express. The findings suggest that large predators in river systems will be threatened by increased variability in water flow induced by climate change. The research also helps settle an old debate among ecologists about ...

Code RED for biodiversity

2010-10-15
While not an outright failure, a 2010 goal set by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) for staunching the loss of the world's species fell far short of expectations for "The International Year of Biodiversity." What does this mean for the 20 proposed 2020 goals being considered by the 10th conference of parties at the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan, on Oct. 18-29, 2010? In the article "Ecosystem Services for 2020," published Oct. 15, 2010 in the journal Science, some of the world's foremost biodiversity experts assembled by the Paris-based ...

PiggyBac joins armory in fight against cancer

2010-10-15
Researchers have developed a genetic tool in mice to speed the discovery of novel genes involved in cancer. The system – called PiggyBac – has already been used by the team to identify novel candidate cancer-causing genes. This new development of the PiggyBac system makes it a powerful addition to the armoury of genetic methods available to researchers for picking apart the genetic causes of cancer. It will complement advances in genomics and genetics of cancer, by providing biological validation to human mutations identified by cancer genome sequencing. The PiggyBac ...

NYU, Princeton biologists find genetic explanation for evolutionary change: Location

2010-10-15
A gene's location on a chromosome plays a significant role in shaping how an organism's traits vary and evolve, according to findings by genome biologists at New York University's Center for Genomic and Systems Biology and Princeton University's Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics. Their research, which appears in the latest issue of the journal Science, suggests that evolution is less a function of what a physical trait is and more a result of where the genes that affect that trait reside in the genome. Physical traits found in nature, such as height or eye ...

Molecular switch controls melanin production, may allow true sunless tanning

2010-10-15
Discovery of a molecular switch that turns off the natural process of skin pigmentation may lead to a novel way of protecting the skin – activating the tanning process without exposure to cancer-causing UV radiation. In their report in the journal Genes & Development, researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cutaneous Biology Research Center (CBRC) describe how blocking the action of this switch – an enzyme called PDE-4D3 – in the skin of mice led to a significant increase in melanin production. "The primary goal of inducing melanin production in human ...

Chest compression-only CPR improves survival in cardiac arrest patients

Chest compression-only CPR improves survival in cardiac arrest patients
2010-10-15
AUDIO: When a person has a heart attack, and the heart stops beating, a new study led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that the... Click here for more information. Heart attack patients whose hearts have stopped beating and who receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) from bystanders fare better if their resuscitators skip the rescue breaths and do only chest compression, according to a study led by researchers at Washington ...

Scientists find signals that make cell nucleus blow up like a balloon

Scientists find signals that make cell nucleus blow up like a balloon
2010-10-15
Size matters when it comes to the nucleus of a cell, and now scientists have discovered the signals that control how big the nucleus gets. Nuclear size varies not only among different species, but also in different types of cells in the same species and at different times during development. In addition, cancer cells are known to develop larger nuclei as they become more malignant. Screening for cervical cancer, for example, involves looking for grossly distorted nuclei in cervical cells collected during a Pap smear. "Pathologists look at nuclear size in cancer cells ...

New research results change the understanding of atmospheric aerosol properties and climate effects

2010-10-15
Atmospheric fine particles affect the Earth's radiation balance by interacting with solar radiation and by participating in cloud formation. Biogenic volatile organic compounds are key players in new particle formation processes. Hence, terrestrial vegetation has an important role as the newly formed particles cool our climate. The chemical composition of such secondary organic aerosol (SOA) particles formed from volatile compounds emitted by vegetation is very complicated and only limited information on the phase state of SOA particles has been available. Thus the scientific ...

A reinvention of agriculture is needed to meet global challenges

2010-10-15
Des Moines, Iowa USA: World renowned scientists speaking at the World Food Prize Borlaug Dialogue have called for a radical transformation in the agriculture sector to cope with climate change, food security and to transition towards sustainability. Dr Dennis Garrity, Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre and Professor MS Swaminathan, 1987 World Food Prize Laureate and founder of the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, have teamed up to promote what they call a 'fresh out of the box solution' which is already dramatically improving crop yields while storing ...

I want to see what you see: Babies treat 'social robots' as sentient beings

I want to see what you see: Babies treat social robots as sentient beings
2010-10-15
Babies are curious about nearly everything, and they're especially interested in what their adult companions are doing. Touch your tummy, they'll touch their own tummies. Wave your hands in the air, they'll wave their own hands. Turn your head to look at a toy, they'll follow your eyes to see what's so exciting. Curiosity drives their learning. At 18 months old, babies are intensely curious about what makes humans tick. A team of University of Washington researchers is studying how infants tell which entities are "psychological agents" that can think and feel. Research ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Liver fibrosis to cancer: scientists map path to block deadly transition

Microbiota boost immunotherapy? A meta-analysis dives into fecal microbiota transplantation and immune checkpoint inhibitors

Cancer's double agents: Fibroblasts both help and hinder immunotherapy

Unveiling large multimodal models in pulmonary CT: A comparative assessment of generative AI performance in lung cancer diagnostics

AI can fake peer reviews and escape detection, study finds

T cell senescence in the tumor microenvironment

Simple solution to save lives globally: Low-cost ‘SimpleSilo’ offers hope for babies with gastroschisis

Curbing roadway fatalities hinges on shared responsibility and rethinking safety

Beta-HPV can directly cause skin cancer in immunocompromised people

Efforts underway to end race-based assessments of lung function

CAR-T cell therapy linked to increased risk of secondary primary malignancies globally

THER: integrative web tool for tumor hypoxia exploration and research

How sources of dietary fat influence cancer growth in obesity

Women less likely than men to receive MS drugs

AI language models sharpen chest CT diagnoses, speeding surgical decisions

Machine learning model predicts which patients with nasopharyngeal cancer respond to radiation

GenAI models extract pathological features for lung adenocarcinoma grading and prognosis

New research further investigates safety of general anesthesia in infants

We might inhale 68,000 lung-penetrating microplastics daily in our homes and cars – 100x previous estimates

Indian adults who move to cities are significantly more likely to become obese than their rural counterparts - and the longer they stay, the greater the risk

Instagram images could influence public opinion on certain major events

Different dimensions of psychopathy might be associated with different physiological underpinnings of facial emotion recognition - and oxytocin could affect this skill - per scoping review of 66 studi

How cumulative heat exposure affects students

An international survey of over 300 adults reveals that males born in summer are potentially more prone to depression than those born in other seasons

The unusual head of a fish and the puzzle of its genes

How does metformin lower blood sugar?

Increasing solar power could lead to significant cuts in CO2 emissions

Black Death offers window into how childhood malnutrition affects adult health

Clinical trial finds safe, effective treatment for children with severe post-Covid syndrome

Researchers map where solar energy delivers the biggest climate payoff

[Press-News.org] Researchers from Kent State University say practice tests improve memory