Lesson 3 of 6 · 9 min
Questions that make people learn
Testing yourself teaches more than rereading: write questions that exercise memory and judgement.
Roediger and Karpicke showed that a test makes people remember better than rereading the same content: the effort of retrieving information consolidates it. The review by Dunlosky and colleagues ranks retrieval practice among the most effective study techniques. A quiz is therefore not just a check, it is a moment of learning.
- A concrete situation rather than a definition to recognise.
- Plausible wrong answers, drawn from real mistakes.
- A single right answer, with no ambiguity.
- Short feedback that explains why, for the right answer as well as for the others.
- In Flow, click the quiz block.
- Check the right answer to each question.
- Reread each piece of feedback: does it really explain why?
- Delete any question whose answer is not in the lesson.
References
- Roediger, Karpicke (2006). Test-Enhanced Learning: Taking Memory Tests Improves Long-Term Retention. Psychological Science 17(3), p. 249–255. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x
- Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh et al. (2013). Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest 14(1), p. 4–58. doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266