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Learning from total failure: why do impossible tests boost learning?

从彻底的失败中学习：为什么不可能的测试能够促进学习？

基本信息

批准号：
ES/N018702/1
负责人：
Timothy Hollins
金额：
$ 36.96万
依托单位：
Plymouth University
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2017
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2017 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FN018702%2F1
关键词：
Learning total failure why do

项目摘要

In education, a test is usually used to measure learning. However, the last decade has seen an explosion of research demonstrating that tests can also dramatically improve learning - the testing effect. Most recently, a surprising discovery has been made that a test can enhance learning even when it is given before the material has been taught. Hence, when students are tested completely unfamiliar material (e.g., foreign language vocabulary), and will inevitably get all the test questions wrong, subsequent learning of that topic is enhanced. This effect has very significant implications for educational settings, and we seek to understand why the effect occurs. The first demonstrations of the testing effect involved 3 phases. Participants first studied the material (e.g. a text). Next, one group took a test on the material, while a second group simply studied the correct answers. A final test assessed how much learning had taken place. Taking the interim test led to better final performance than restudying the material, and later research showed the effect was further enhanced if initial answers were corrected with feedback. One possible explanation for the testing effect is that after thinking of a (wrong) answer, people are highly motivated to learn the correct answer. This particular explanation suggests that testing might be helpful even before the first encounter with the to-be-studied material, as has recently been observed. For example, if you were asked to guess the meaning of a rare English word such as "roke" before ever being told its true meaning (mist), then you would be especially good at remembering that meaning on a later test. It is this benefit of initial tests prior to learning (known as test-potentiated learning - TPL) that is the focus of the current proposal. The Current ProjectWe will test a number of potential explanations for the effects of initial tests (TPL) in three strands of research. Strands 1 and 2 will use unfamiliar word pairs and face-word pairs. The former are foreign language items (Finnish nouns and their English language meanings), and the latter are unfamiliar faces, and facts associated with those faces (e.g. name/occupation). The Finnish vocabulary is used because it has clear implications for foreign language learning. Also, Finnish words specifically are not similar to English words, which guarantees that the answers to the initial test will be incorrect. Face-name learning has implications for more social and work-place situations. In the final Strand 3, more complex word-based materials (texts and general knowledge) will be used to extend the findings from Strands 1 and 2 to a range of classroom situations. Participants will know nothing about these materials in advance.In a prototypical experiment using Finnish vocabulary, all trials will start with the presentation of a Finnish word. In the "test" condition, participants will be asked to guess the meaning of the word before being given the true meaning. A "study" condition, in which no guess is made, will serve as the control. It is expected, given previous research in our laboratory, that guessing will enhance memory for the true meaning.Strand 1 will explore the extent to which initial tests benefit learning precisely because participants make errors, and so they are surprised by the true answer. Strand 2 will look at the extent to which people are more motivated to study, or likely to change their study strategies following a guess. That is, Strand 1 examines potential "low-level" mechanisms (e.g., error correction) of learning whereas Strand 2 looks at more "high-level" strategic processes that might result from being tested. The experiments in Strand 3 will test the generality of the findings from Strands 1 and 2 to more complex tasks such as general knowledge learning. This strand is designed to broaden the scope of more applied research that might be conducted in the future.

在教育中，考试通常用来衡量学习。然而，在过去的十年里，有大量的研究表明，测试也可以显着改善学习-测试效果。最近，一个令人惊讶的发现是，即使在教授材料之前进行测试，也可以提高学习效果。因此，当学生被测试完全不熟悉的材料（例如，外语词汇），并将不可避免地得到所有的测试问题错误，随后的学习该主题是加强。这种效应对教育环境有非常重要的影响，我们试图了解为什么会发生这种效应。测试效果的第一次演示包括3个阶段。参与者首先学习材料（例如文本）。接下来，一组人对材料进行了测试，而第二组人只是研究了正确答案。最后的测试评估了学习了多少。参加临时测试比重新学习材料会导致更好的最终表现，后来的研究表明，如果通过反馈纠正最初的答案，效果会进一步增强。对测试效应的一种可能解释是，在想到一个（错误的）答案后，人们非常有动力去学习正确的答案。这种特殊的解释表明，测试可能是有益的，甚至在第一次遇到要研究的材料，因为最近已经观察到。例如，如果你被要求猜测一个罕见的英语单词的意思，比如“roke”，在被告知它的真正含义之前，那么你在以后的测试中会特别擅长记住这个意思。这是学习前的初始测试（称为测试增强学习-TPL）的好处，这是当前提案的重点。目前的项目我们将测试一些潜在的解释的影响，初步测试（TPL）在三个研究链。第1和第2条将使用不熟悉的单词对和面孔单词对。前者是外语项目（芬兰语名词及其英语含义），后者是不熟悉的面孔以及与这些面孔相关的事实（例如姓名/职业）。使用芬兰语词汇是因为它对外语学习有明确的意义。此外，芬兰语单词与英语单词并不相似，这保证了初始测试的答案将是不正确的。面孔名称学习对更多的社会和工作场所的情况有影响。在最后的Strand 3中，将使用更复杂的基于单词的材料（文本和一般知识）将Strand 1和2的发现扩展到一系列课堂情境。在一个使用芬兰语词汇的原型实验中，所有的实验都是从一个芬兰语单词开始的。在“测试”条件下，参与者将被要求猜测单词的含义，然后才能给出真正的含义。一个"研究"的条件，其中没有猜测，将作为控制。根据我们实验室先前的研究，猜测可以增强对真实含义的记忆，第一部分将探讨最初的测试对学习的帮助程度，因为参与者会犯错，所以他们会对真实答案感到惊讶。Strand 2将研究人们在多大程度上更有动力学习，或者在猜测之后可能改变他们的学习策略。也就是说，链1检查潜在的"低级"机制（例如，错误纠正）的学习，而链2着眼于更多的“高层次”的战略过程，可能会导致被测试。Strand 3中的实验将测试Strand 1和Strand 2中的发现对更复杂的任务（如一般知识学习）的普遍性。这一系列研究旨在扩大未来可能进行的更多应用研究的范围。