Access our database of retrieval practice research in classrooms!

We are thrilled to announce and share our new database of retrieval practice research conducted in classrooms! Click here to access the database and download our project summary.

In this systematic review of the literature, cognitive scientists have organized 50 classroom experiments on retrieval practice, all in one place.

In celebration of our 100th update today (2 years!), we would love for you to share this research with educators on Twitter. Thank you for unleashing the science of learning!

 Access Our Research Database 

Photo by Jesse Orrico on Unsplash

 

Want a quick way to access classroom research on retrieval practice? We have a new database of 50 experiments sorted by grade level, content area, type of retrieval practice, and more.

This is much more than a spreadsheet. With this literature review, we:

Share and provide access to valuable research in cognitive science

Compare apples to apples by carefully defining classroom research

Identify trends and research-based recommendations for teachers

Highlight future directions for applied research on retrieval practice

The project summary includes an overview of inclusion criteria, the procedure for the literature review, key findings, and links to the 37 studies included in the review. This project, including the database and literature review, is so new – it’s literally a work in progress! This project as been pre-registered on the Open Science Framework (OSF) and updates will be posted at https://osf.io/mz2ks/.

Note that this project has not yet undergone the peer review process. We value the feedback and input from leaders in the field. At the same time, the peer review process and publication production can take a year or more. In order to make this review of the literature on retrieval practice relevant immediately, we have decided to release these documents in advance of peer review to facilitate rapid dissemination of research.

Access the Database

Download the Project Summary
 Learn More About the Literature Review 



























 

Cognitive scientists Pooja K. Agarwal, Ludmila D. Nunes, and Janell R. Blunt scoured the literature on retrieval practice, narrowing down nearly 2,000 publications to 37 key studies and 50 experiments.

Pooja K. Agarwal, Ph.D., Founder of RetrievalPractice.org and Assistant Professor, Berklee College of Music

Ludmila D. Nunes, Ph.D., Researcher and Science Writer, Association for Psychological Science

Janell R. Blunt, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Anderson University

Studies included in the literature review ranged across a number of factors:

Delays between retrieval practice and final assessment ranged from one day to the end of the semester (e.g., McDaniel et al., 2013 and Tu et al., 2017, respectively)

Assignment of participants to conditions included random assignment and quasi-experimental designs (e.g., Kromann et al., 2011 and Foss & Pirozzolo, 2017)

Samples included students from a range of countries, including the Netherlands (Bekkink et al., 2012), Pakistan (Ayyub & Mahboob, 2017), Sweden (Stenlund et al., 2017), Taiwan (Tu et al., 2017), Turkey (Yigit et al., 2014), and the United States (Agarwal, 2019)

Education levels ranged from elementary school to medical school (e.g., Goossens et al., 2016 and Larsen et al., 2013a)

Sample sizes after attrition ranged from fewer than 20 students to nearly 400 students (Jones et al., 2016 and Bjork et al., 2014)

Of 59 effect sizes measured by Cohen’s d (some experiments included more than one comparison), the majority of effect sizes were greater than d = 0.50 (36 total). Read the project summary for more details and access the database to view all effect sizes (including both Cohen’s d and partial eta squared).

Flowchart of the procedure followed for the literature review

Download the project summary for more information.