Inhibition in Recall: Implications for Assessment in Higher Education

Abstract

We examined whether the retrieval of information might be source of forgetting when University students perform an examination test. Psychology students completed a test composed of two sections. In section (a), students answered true/false questions from two topics. Afterwards, section (b) was presented with new questions from the same topic (RP– questions) and questions from a topic that was not presented in section (a) (NRP questions). The students showed lower accuracy in RP– questions relative to NRP questions. This result suggests that when students answered questions in (a) section, related questions were inhibited so it was hard to recover them in section (b). This study shows that some methods used to evaluate the students’ knowledge might promote forgetting.