Ten Benefits of Testing and Their Applications to Educational Practice

Testing in school is usually done for purposes of assessment, to assign students grades (from tests in classrooms) or rank them in terms of abilities (in standardized tests). Yet tests can serve other purposes in educational settings that greatly improve performance; this chapter reviews 10 other benefits of testing. Retrieval practice occurring during tests can greatly enhance retention of the retrieved information (relative to no testing or even to restudying). Furthermore, besides its durability, such repeated retrieval produces knowledge that can be retrieved flexibly and transferred to other situations. On open-ended assessments (such as essay tests), retrieval practice required by tests can help students organize information and form a coherent knowledge base. Retrieval of some information on a test can also lead to easier retrieval of related information, at least on PsychologyofLearningandMotivation, Volume 55 # 2011 Elsevier Inc. ISSN 0079-7421, DOI 10.1016/B978-0-12-387691-1.00001-6 All rights reserved.