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Does a final test really improve learning outcomes compared to additional practice time?

Testing as a final activity for students increases learning outcome compared with spending an equal amount of time practising the skills.

If you’ve been teaching for 20+ years, do you remember those end-of-term tests that we all used to set in our classes? For 25 years, I always had a gut feeling that those tests did more than just assess. They actually made learning stick.

Now, there’s scientific evidence to back up what many teachers may have suspected: a final test can have a significant impact on learning outcomes, even more than additional practice time.

Schools often grapple with the balance between assessment and practical application. Getting it right could significantly impact students’ mastery of a subject and how well they meet curriculum goals.

This testing effect has been, in both laboratory and classroom studies, demonstrated (Roediger and Karpicke , 2006) to be a robust and independent phenomenon that applies to a variety of test formats and levels of knowledge learning.

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