Retrival Practice is F*cking Obvious

In the science of learning, there is absolutely no debate: practice techniques that center around retrieving information directly from one's brain produce superior learning outcomes compared to techniques that involve re-ingesting information from an external source.

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The retention gain from transcribing or re-reading information pales in comparison to the retention gain from retrieval practice.

The best way to retain material is to test yourself on it. Only peek back at the reference if you are totally stuck and cannot remember how to proceed, only revisit the place where you’re stuck, and then try to recall the rest unassisted.

This is called the testing effect, also known as the retrieval practice effect. It’s been supported by a mountain of research, and it’s been f*cking obvious since at least 1620 when Francis Bacon wrote:

In the science of learning, there is absolutely no debate: practice techniques that center around retrieving information directly from one’s brain produce superior learning outcomes compared to techniques that involve re-ingesting information from an external source.

Transcribing, re-reading, highlighting, etc., are all bullshit study techniques. Seriously, if you want to bullshit someone into thinking that you are studying, without actually retaining much information, then those are the techniques to use. But if you’re interested in actually retaining information, then retrieval is the way. As Yang et al. (2023a) summarize:

Retrieval practice is one of the oldest cognitive learning strategies known to humankind. Since the early 1900s, its superiority has been experimentally supported by hundreds of studies across widely different memory tasks, content domains, and experimental methodologies (Rowland, 2014).

In particular, the testing effect has been shown to carry over to classroom settings, where frequent quizzing (with feedback) promotes greater learning on both tested and non-tested material (McDaniel et al., 2007). Its reliability has even been explicitly demonstrated across individual cognitive differences like working memory capacity (Pastötter & Frings, 2019). As Yang et al. (2023b) summarize:

Still, some people disagree with the testing effect because they feel like it slows down their learning. They experience a comfortable sense of fluency while following along with a stream of information, whereas pausing to pull that information out of their head breaks the flow, and occasionally failing the retrieval makes them feel like they’re not learning as much.

But really, all that’s happening is that retrieval practice is bringing their perception of learning more in line with their actual learning. It speeds up their actual learning, slows down their perception of learning, and exposes that “following along” is not the same as learning.

Learning is a positive change in long-term memory, and long-term memory doesn’t change much when you just “follow along,” even if you understand perfectly. It’s the act of retrieving information from memory that really slows its decay. If you don’t practice retrieval, then the information quickly dissipates. It stays with you only briefly in short-term memory – just long enough to trick you into thinking it’ll stick with you for the long term, when it’s really on the way out the door. But, of course, if you don’t check that it’s there, you won’t notice that it’s gone.

Again, this stuff is f*cking obvious if you just think about how your brain works in daily life.

Have you ever had the experience of being unable to remember something despite repeated exposures, because you keep automatically looking it up from a reference instead of trying to retrieve it from memory? That’s happened to me an embarrassing number of times with addresses, phone numbers, directions, etc. And any books you read, movies you watch – the only ones you remember in proper detail are the ones you periodically think about and replay in your head.

If you just consume and don’t reproduce, then you forget almost entirely. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched a movie and didn’t even realize I’d seen it before until I got 20 minutes in and something felt familiar. And even then I could barely remember anything about the rest of the movie, just that it felt a bit familiar.

Here’s what it comes down to:

1. “Learning” information without practicing reproducing it is not really learning it. It’s really just “loading” the information into short-term memory. The fact that it’s in short-term memory can trick you into thinking it’s going to stay there, but in reality it dissipates quickly, and the only way you can bring it back without reloading it from an external reference is if you’re able to retrieve the information from long-term memory.

Which is why learning really amounts to increasing your ability to recall information from long-term memory unassisted – an action that can be trained by repeatedly performing said action in gradually more challenging contexts.

(It’s just like strength training: loading the information is like taking a weight off the rack and learning it is increasing your ability to lift it off the floor of long-term memory up into short-term memory.)

2. The perception of learning is often at odds with actual measurable learning. This is a well-known finding in education research: when using effective learning strategies, students perform better on assessments but may feel they’ve learned less.

Why?

A) Effective learning strategies increase cognitive activation, enhancing learning despite students feeling it’s harder. (In the literature this is known as a “desirable difficulty.”)

B) In the absence of objective measurement, perceptions run wild. It’s easy to believe that you have learned something well enough to retrieve it when you are not made to attempt doing so. It’s easy to overestimate your knowledge when you are made to exercise it. (In the literature this is known as the “illusion of competence.”)

C) It’s easy to mistake “I remember having consumed information” for “I remember that information.” Just because the information was once held in your brain, doesn’t mean it’s still there.

(Again, it’s just like strength training – the strongest people lift weights heavy enough to make them feel weak, and people who don’t test their strength often believe themself to be way stronger than they are.)

References

Bacon, F. (1620). The new organon: Or true directions concerning the interpretation of nature.

Pastötter, B., & Frings, C. (2019). The forward testing effect is reliable and independent of learners’ working memory capacity. Journal of cognition, 2(1).

Rowland, C. A. (2014). The effect of testing versus restudy on retention: a meta-analytic review of the testing effect. Psychological bulletin, 140(6), 1432.

McDaniel, M. A., Anderson, J. L., Derbish, M. H., & Morrisette, N. (2007). Testing the testing effect in the classroom. European journal of cognitive psychology, 19(4-5), 494-513.

Yang, C., Shanks, D. R., Zhao, W., Fan, T., & Luo, L. (2023a). Frequent Quizzing Accelerates Classroom Learning. In C. Overson, C. M. Hakala, L. L. Kordonowy, & V. A. Benassi (Eds.), In Their Own Words: What Scholars and Teachers Want You to Know About Why and How to Apply the Science of Learning in Your Academic Setting (pp. 252-62). Society for the Teaching of Psychology.

Yang, C., Li, J., Zhao, W., Luo, L., & Shanks, D. R. (2023b). Do practice tests (quizzes) reduce or provoke test anxiety? A meta-analytic review. Educational Psychology Review, 35(3), 87.

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