Review Websites Improve College Exam Performance, but Review Strategy Might Not Matter

Abstract

Retrieval practice has been shown to improve learning and memory, but most of these studies occurred within laboratory settings. We explored whether external review websites influenced exam performance in university-level psychology courses. The websites randomly assigned students to either a read condition (i.e., the question and answer were presented simultaneously) or a test condition (i.e., the question was presented by itself, with the answer being revealed after a retrieval attempt). Students could utilize the websites as frequently as they desired throughout the semester, and separate websites were created for each exam within a particular course. Results suggested that the review websites improved exam performance, but there was no advantage for those in the test versus read group. Implications and limitations are discussed.