Is Testing and Quizzing Good for Learning?

Posted in Standards and EvaluationPhilosophy of EducationTeaching on Oct 15, 2010 - 02:02 PM

According to a blog posted in the education section of the online magazine, Good, Kent University conducted a study which, scientists claim, has shown that practice tests and practice quizzes are good for learning. It's a short blog, and if you've got time, I suggest reading that before you read the rest of this blog. Just click here.

Basically, the study conducted an experiment between two groups of people preparing for a Swahili vocabulary test. One group studied for the test by whatever methods they chose, and the other group took a pop-quiz prior to the actual test, and were given a list of English words which correlated to the Swahili words in some fashion (by meaning or phonetically) so as to provide an easy way to memorize the meanings of the words in Swahili. The study shows that the people who took the pop quiz and used the scientist-directed study methods did better on the test than the other group did. And the conclusion of the study is that, practice tests and pop quizzes are beneficial to learning.

But I don't like that language. I don't think that showing people easy ways to memorize things and then pop-quizzing them to prepare them to pass a test necessarily delivers learning to people.

I've had tests and used fun little memory tricks to remember answers. Anybody can cram for an exam, and use funny little sayings to memorize answers. But in some instances, as soon as the test was over, I, and others, just forgot what was memorized. I think that is because we didn't really learn things, but rather we memorized them. We didn't understand the full meaning of the answers to the questions... In my case, I just knew the answers, because I had memorized them, because I knew my grade depended on passing that test, and in the heat of a busy semester at school, sometimes you just gotta pass that test by whatever means you can. And often times the things we memorized are forgotten shortly after completing the test, because we internalize that the answers are just good to get a high score.

This study only shows that in a controlled environment, and in a small time frame where multiple subjects are not involved, people can at least memorize things and recall them shortly thereafter. This does not show at all that quizzes and tests lead to learning that awards a proper understanding of subject matter that will retain throughout a long duration of time.

Helping folks to memorize facts so they can pass a test is only teaching people to memorize answers to questions. It is not necessarily teaching an understanding of any subject, other than memorization.. A child could easily memorize that 2+2=4, and even pass a test where that question is given, but without a proper understanding of the variables involved in the equation, that child may not be able to answer 2+2+2.

Sure we can memorize, and sure we can be tested thereafter and get a good grade. And sure, some people do actually learn from tests, but I think that is mostly because some folks seek out and appreciate the knowledge they gain by attaining an understanding of subject matter, and retaining that information. But there is also a large demographic of folks who just memorize answers, and then forget those test answers as soon as the test is over. Teaching an understanding of subject matter is good for learning, but not teaching memorization so people can pass tests. Perhaps one could accurately claim that teaching a real understanding of subject matter in conjunction with testing is good. But it is wrong and misleading to say that testing is good for learning.

Testing is good for easily acquiring statistics. It's too bad the big hitters in education won't just come out and say that.

Tags for this entry:
learning, teaching, testing, memorization, knowledge

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