title: Learners' choices and beliefs about self-testing.
abstract: Students have to make scores of practical decisions when they study. We investigated the effectiveness of, and beliefs underlying, one such practical decision: the decision to test oneself while studying. Using a flashcards-like procedure, participants studied lists of word pairs. On the second of two study trials, participants either saw the entire pair again (pair mode) or saw the cue and attempted to generate the target (test mode). Participants were asked either to rate the effectiveness of each study mode (Experiment 1) or to choose between the two modes (Experiment 2). The results demonstrated a mismatch between metacognitive beliefs and study choices: Participants (incorrectly) judged that the pair mode resulted in the most learning, but chose the test mode most frequently. A post-experimental questionnaire suggested that self-testing was motivated by a desire to diagnose learning rather than a desire to improve learning.
authors.affiliation: UCLA Department of Psychology, 1285 Franz Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563, USA. nkornell@ucla.edu
authors.forename: Nate
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kornell
authors.forename: Lisa K
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Son
mesh_terms: D001244:Association; D001296:Audiovisual Aids; D004521:Educational Measurement / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011897:Random Allocation; D013223:Statistics as Topic