Over the last decade, a large body of literature on the benefits of testing (Roediger et al., 2011) has become connected with and articulated through the language and conceptual toolkit of cognitive science. The evidence is clear: testing raises pupil achievement (Perry et al., 2021; Yang et al., 2021).
More recently, the research on test-enhanced learning has moved beyond the “unequivocal” benefits of retrieval practice and two areas that have received more than a passing curiosity recently are pre-testing, potentiated learning and metacognition.
Pretesting or prequestion (or potentiated learning) refers to the learning gains from asking pupils questions before they are taught new information.
Metacognition is a learners’ understanding and regulation (and self-regulation) of their own learning process, including their beliefs and perceptions about learning, monitoring the state of their knowledge and controlling their learning activities.
If you are interested in looking at both together, Pan and Rivers (2022) is a good starting point. Pan and Rivers (2022) investigated through multiple cycles of pre-testing and reading, followed by a final test. The study aimed to find out if learners become more aware of the benefits of pre-testing with experience and the impact of external support:
- performance feedback (displaying criterial test performance for pretested versus read items)
- prediction reminders (displaying learners’ predictions alongside performance feedback), and,
- recall prompts (asking learners to remember criterial test performance during the first cycle prior to making predictions for the second cycle)—that might improve, or provide insights into, such awareness.
What did we learn?
On the downside, the study found that repeated experience with pre-testing did not result in “spontaneous updating of beliefs.” On the upside, providing learners with performance feedback and/or reminders of their original predictions was effective in fostering metacognitive awareness of the pretesting effect.
Takeaways
With pretesting, it would appear that experience isn’t the best teacher. Experience of pretesting will not lead to pupils adopting pretesting strategies. Highlighting discrepancies between pupils’ expectations and actual results, and doing so over multiple rounds of training and testing, will help. It would appear convincing pupils of the power of pretesting requires quite some doing. A classroom demonstration may “foster appreciation for the benefits of pretesting, and prompting learners to reflect on their performance can promote the use of effective learning strategies.”
In asking Dr Pan his reflections on the study he replied:
One thing I think is really fascinating about pretesting is that it shows the value of making errors, guessing something incorrectly, making a mistake, having a wrong idea about something. What pretesting shows is that sometimes you guess incorrectly, that in of itself, that act of guessing incorrectly can lead to better learning, — if you then get to study the correct answer afterwards. So this is a different twist on the value of making an error.
Dr Steven Pan
Forecasts and predictions as learning
In addition to the direct forward effects of pretesting, Dr Pan’s reflections and this study’s findings, points to the indirect metacognitive insights available to pupils and teachers open to using testing to enhance learning rather than waiting to test what has been learnt.
Six pretesting opportunities for your classroom
- Pretest key vocabulary – ahead of reading an extend text
- Pretest key to be learned information for the lesson eg plot line, dates or facts
- Pretest key information to spark curiosity ahead of the taught phase of the lesson
- Pretest knowledge to activate prior learning or check for understanding ahead of the taught phase of the lesson
- Pretest a known misconception
- Pretest and then post-test the same question to inform your next steps as a teacher
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