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Collaborative Testing Improves Performance on Long Answer Questions, and Maintains Long‐Term Retention of Course Material
Author(s) -
Ritchie Kerry Lynn,
Rajakaruna Rebecca,
Newton Genevieve
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.30.1_supplement.776.7
Subject(s) - test (biology) , term (time) , psychology , significant difference , knowledge retention , class (philosophy) , retention rate , medicine , mathematics education , medical education , computer science , artificial intelligence , biology , physics , paleontology , computer security , quantum mechanics
Collaborative testing (CT) is an assessment strategy whereby students first write a test as an individual and then immediately following, write the same test again as a group, with the opportunity to discuss their thought process in reaching their answers. This strategy has been shown to increase performance on multiple‐choice (MC) tests, and to improve short‐term retention of material. However, this format has not been evaluated for tests using long answer (LA) questions, and measures of improved long‐term retention are inconsistent. The purpose of this study was to determine if CT improves performance on LA questions and whether CT could improve long‐term retention of course material compared to traditional teaching and testing methods. Two courses, (3 rd year Exercise Physiology, n=102 and 2 nd year Biochemistry, n=64) administered identical protocols which included an in‐class collaborative midterm (half MC and half LA questions), an unannounced, individual retention test 1 week later (short‐term) followed by a brief instructor‐led, in‐class review of the test, and finally another unannounced individual retention test 6 weeks later (long‐term). Performance was calculated as the difference in grades between collaborative and individual midterm. Retention was calculated as the difference in grades between a given retention test and the individual midterm. CT improved performance on both MC and LA questions, but the degree of improvement was greater on LA questions (16.5% ± 1.29%, 20.6% ± 1.41%, p<0.05). As expected, short‐term retention was better on questions that had been tested collaboratively compared to questions that were only seen individually (+3.7% ± 1.53% vs. −7.9% ± 1.50%, p<0.05). Surprisingly, long‐term retention was similarly maintained for both collaborative and individual questions (+0.69% ± 1.92% vs. −0.16% ± 1.89%), indicating that retention of the questions that had been tested individually had improved since the short‐term retention test. Our results show that CT can improve performance on LA questions and help students retain this information over several weeks, but also suggests that taking the time to review a test in class may be an equal strategy to improve long‐term retention of material.