Retrieval Practice Effects in a Psychology Lecture: Illustrating the Relevance of Study Design, Item Difficulty, and Selection of Dependent Measures

This study investigated the effects of retrieval practice on the cognitive and metacognitive learning outcome in a psychology lecture at university. In a within-subjects design, N  =  180 students completed an intermediate knowledge test in the 9th session and a final test in the 13th session of the semester. Both tests assessed students’ correctness of answering and confidence in their answers. In the final test, items that were intermediately tested were answered as correctly as items that were not intermediately tested. The failure to find a testing effect at the level of cognitive performance could not be attributed to interference with item difficulty, as intermediately tested and not tested items were balanced according to their a priori difficulty. However, testing improved performance at the metacognitive level. Confidence ratings were more accurate and less biased in items that were intermediately tested compared to items not intermediately tested. The results are discussed in the context of metacognitive monitoring as a condition of self-regulated learning in an authentic psychology learning context.