The pretesting effect is robust throughout adulthood, but metacognitive beliefs about pretesting and challenge differ

Pretesting—asking learners to try to answer questions about a topic before learning—results in better memory of that topic compared to simply studying the topic without taking a pretest. We investigated whether age and memory contentment moderate the benefit of pretesting, and whether judgments of pretesting effectiveness varied across adulthood (N = 273, age range: 18–82). The pretesting effect was not moderated by either factor. Metacognitive judgments, however, varied by age. Younger participants were more likely to appreciate the benefits of pretesting than middle-aged and older adults. In Study 2 (N = 296, age range: 18–83), our mixed-methods approach showed converging results: The older the participant, the less likely they were to appreciate the benefits of errors and think that pretesting would be effective for them. These results suggest that although the pretesting effect appears to be robust throughout adulthood, metacognitive beliefs differ.

Educational relevance statement

Making mistakes is not just an unavoidable part of the learning process, but rather, cognitive science of learning research shows that it should be desirable, as it fosters deeper engagement that is integral to learning. In this paper, we focus on the strategy of pretesting—making guesses before learning the correct answer—and find that benefits are robust across adulthood, with participants ranging from 18 to 82. But people's beliefs differ with older participants responding that errors are undesirable. These findings highlight the importance of shifting attitudes towards challenge to support “desirably difficult” approaches to learning, thus ensuring that learners have both the right mindset and the right toolset.