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Cognitive Labby Educator Today

Module · Domain D2

Retrieval practice

Trying to recall something is not only a way of checking memory — it changes memory. Here is what the research shows, how confident we can be, and how teachers have put it to work.

Available · draftVersion 0.1 draft11 labelled claims15 sourcesNot yet expert-reviewed

Stage 1 · Diagnose

Diagnose · before you read

What do you currently think?

Respond to each statement honestly. This is not scored or saved — it surfaces assumptions the explanation below will test.

0 of 5 answered

  1. Re-reading notes carefully is one of the most effective ways to remember them.
  2. A quiz only helps if students get most answers right.
  3. Retrieval practice works best when the quiz counts toward a grade.
  4. Retrieval practice helps with any kind of material, equally.
  5. If students do well at the end of the lesson, the learning has stuck.

Stage 2 · Explain

What is retrieval practice?

Retrieval practice means deliberately recalling information from memory — answering a question, writing down what you remember, explaining an idea without notes. It is often called the testing effect, but the test here is a learning tool, not a judgement.

In a widely cited experiment, students who read a passage and then tried to recall it remembered more a week later than students who spent the same time re-reading it — even though re-reading felt more effective at the time, and did slightly better on a test straight away. (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006)

The effect is not confined to laboratories. In middle-school science classes, for instance, material that had been quizzed in low-stakes formats was remembered better on later unit and end-of-semester exams than material that had not. (McDaniel et al., 2011)

Why might it work?

Recalling something is not like reading a file back out. Each successful retrieval seems to strengthen and reorganise the memory, and to add new routes back to it. Effortful recall appears to matter more than easy recall.

Three conditions that matter

Feedback. Retrieval followed by the correct answer helps more than retrieval alone, and prevents errors from sticking. (Butler & Roediger, 2008)

Delay. Benefits show on later tests. Returning to ideas across days and weeks strengthens them further. (Cepeda et al., 2006)

Low stakes. Most classroom studies used ungraded or lightly graded quizzes. Pressure may reduce the benefit. (Agarwal et al., 2021; Hinze & Rapp, 2014)

What it is not

Retrieval practice does not need grades, and it is not the same as high-stakes testing. Nor does it replace teaching: it strengthens what has been learned, so students need a foundation to retrieve from. Its limits are set out in full under Examine Evidence.