Research has shown that implementing frequent low-stakes practice tests in the classroom can lead to a substantial boost in performance on exams in actual classroom settings (e.g., Leeming, 2002; Lyle & Crawford, 2011; McDaniel et al., 2011). There are many different ways that instructors can incorporate test practice into everyday activities in the classroom. Here we cover four different strategies, but of
course, others may also work well depending upon the structure of the class and preferences of the instructor.
Frequent questioning during course instruction is one way for instructors to incorporate testing into the classroom. This involves the instructor asking a question , waiting for students to generate a response, and then randomly choosing any student in the class to answer the question. This requires that all students generate an answer, so all students will benefit from testing. It is important that instructors provide feedback to students, so that they may correct any wrong answers they may have generated. We realize that some instructors may not want to put students on the spot, and would prefer to have volunteers provide answers. This could also work successfully, but we encourage instructors to
emphasize the importance of all students generating (and perhaps writing down) their own answers to a question, before any student answers out loud. In this way all students should reap the benefits of engaging in test practice.
A number of other strategies incorporate test practice into classroom instruction and do not isolate one student (e.g., using student response systems or “clickers,” giving quizzes at the beginning or the end of class and others). Clickers are remote devices for personal responding, and they have received
increasing interest in recent years. For a clicker test, the instructor asks a question and students make their response by choosing between options to determine which is the most appropriate answer (i.e., multiple choice test) or by typing in their answer via texting (i.e., short response tests). Clickers engage
all students, by requiring everyone to respond to a given question. The clicker results are also
informative to instructors because they can provide information about how many students understand a given concept or topic. This can serve to modify instruction by highlighting information that may need to be covered in more detail. One downside to clicker use is that they do involve some cost (although they can be used for many students across years). A reminder: feedback should always be giving during or just after the clicker question or quiz in class.
A very similar and nearly zero cost method for incorporating quizzing into classroom instruction would involve providing students with a set of colored index cards at the beginning of a course with
instructions to bring the card to class every day. Each card could represent an answer (e.g., true/false or a, b, c, d options for a multiple choice question). Throughout the class period, whenever an instructor asks a question, students would choose the colored flashcard representing the answer they believe is correct and hold it up. Like clickers, this strategy also provides instructors with immediate feedback about the number of students who understand a given concept yet costs very little to implement in the classroom.
Another simple strategy for incorporating frequent test practice into the classroom is to give quizzes at the beginning or end of each class. The basic idea behind each of these is to test students during every class period. A few minutes at the beginning or end of each class is devoted to test practice. Instructors ask students to answer a couple of questions either before class begins (covering topics covered in previous classes and the reading assignment) or at the end of each class (covering topics covered during the class) and students write their answers on a piece of paper and hand them in to the instructor. Students are encouraged to study frequently because they know they will be tested on information. For each of the strategies just described, we highly recommend that they involve low stakes testing for students so that they do not significantly influence grades (which would be largely determined in the usual ways – papers, final exams, etc.). The most important aspect of each of these strategies is that they involve frequent testing in the classroom. Although some additional time will be required of the
instructor to generate the questions and grade the answers, we believe this is time well spent. Frequent practice testing will enhance learning and long-term retention, which may ultimately save instructors time because they will not have to re-teach information as often. These quizzes also offer instructors immediate feedback regarding how much information students are learning. If all students perform poorly on a particular set of questions, this may serve as a cue to the instructor to review the concept or topic. Finally, we emphasize the importance of instructors providing feedback after students have
engaged in test practice so that they may correct any errors that may have occurred during test practice. One point we have not emphasized here is that quizzing has many benefits besides the direct effect of retrieval practice (see Roediger, Putnam & Smith, 2011, who discussed ten benefits of testing).