Can the Testing Effect for General Knowledge Facts Be Influenced by Distraction due to Divided Attention or Experimentally Induced Anxious Mood?

Chi-Shing Tse,Wai-Shing Tse,Savio Wai-Ho Wong,Meingold Hiu-Ming Chan

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00969

Chi-Shing Tse, Wai-Shing Tse + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00969

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Abstract

Studies on testing effect have showed that a practice test on study materials leads to better performance in a final test than restudying the materials for the same amount of time. Two experiments were conducted to test how distraction, as triggered by divided attention or experimentally induced anxious mood in the practice phase, could modulate the benefit of testing (vs. restudying) on the learning of interesting and boring general knowledge facts. Two individual difference factors (trait test anxiety and working memory (WM) capacity) were measured. Under divided attention, participants restudied or recalled the missing information in visually presented general knowledge facts, while judging whether auditorily presented items were from a pre-specified category. To experimentally induce anxious mood, we instructed participants to view and interpret negative pictures with anxious music background before and during the practice phase. Immediate and two-day delayed tests were given. Regardless of item type (interesting or boring) or retention interval, the testing effect was not significantly affected by divided (vs. full) attention or anxious (vs. neutral) mood. These results remained unchanged after taking into account the influences of participants’ trait test anxiety and WM capacity. However, when analyses were restricted to the study materials that had been learnt in the divided attention condition while participants accurately responded to the concurrent distracting task, the testing effect was stronger in the divided attention condition than in the full attention condition. Contrary to previous studies (e.g., Tse and Pu, 2012), there was no WM capacity × trait test anxiety interaction in the overall testing effect. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Highlights

Testing has often been used to assess how much students have learned in the classroom
We tested the replicability of Tse and Pu’s (2012) findings on whether working memory (WM) capacity could interact with trait test anxiety in predicting the testing effects and examined whether these two individual difference factors could interact with situational factors in predicting the testing effects
As there was a significant difference in WM score between participants in the full and divided attention conditions, t(94) = 2.68, p < 0.01, and d = 0.55, but not in TAI scores, t(94) = 1.46, p = 0.15, and d = 0.30, the WM score was included as a covariate in the following analyses

Summary

Introduction

Testing has often been used to assess how much students have learned in the classroom. Less is known about whether this testing effect could be modulated by situational factors that can be experienced by students in a daily classroom setting (e.g., distraction), as well as the interaction between these situational factors and individual differences such as working memory (WM) capacity and trait test anxiety. We manipulated the potential distraction that students may experience (divided attention or anxious mood in the restudying and testing practice phases) to examine how these situational factors would influence the testing effect for the learning of interesting and boring general knowledge facts in immediate and two-day delayed tests. We tested the replicability of Tse and Pu’s (2012) findings on whether WM capacity could interact with trait test anxiety in predicting the testing effects and examined whether these two individual difference factors could interact with situational factors (divided attention or anxious mood) in predicting the testing effects

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