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Individual Retrieval Practice Studies

Individual Retrieval Practice Studies - Interrogating Student Study Habits

"Individual Retrieval Practice Studies:
Interrogating Student Study Habits"

By Christian Bermel '24


As student researchers within the Center for Ignatian Pedagogy, we were tasked with collaborating with teachers to implement and assess the effectiveness of retrieval practice in improving student learning. While we worked with teachers to help them plan and implement retrieval practice in their classrooms, we also conducted our own self studies: we committed to implementing retrieval practice in one of our own classes and measured its effects on our learning process. This individual aspect of our research was intended to create student perspectives on retrieval practice to compliment the teachers’ findings. Below is an abbreviated version of my study and an example of what we as students conducted over the course of the first semester of the 2023-2024 school year.

Each of the 11 student research fellows were asked to choose one class in which we would implement retrieval practice throughout the semester. I chose to research the impact of retrieval practice and correlations between my pre-test confidence levels and test performance in Honors Anatomy and Physiology. This class is fast-paced and rigorous, structured so that our homework is solely focused on studying for chapter tests—tests which account for 100% of our semester grade. As a result of the significant memorization and conceptual understanding required to perform well in this class, I deemed it optimal to implement retrieval practice to solidify my learning in this course. 

Beginning 10 days before each chapter test, I measured my confidence in my understanding of the content each day using a 5-point Likert scale. In addition, I tracked how many days I practiced retrieval leading up to the test. For retrieval practice, I dedicated 30 minutes to using flashcards and doing brain dumps, trying to recall and remember the content I had already learned. Once I received my test scores, I had three data points for each chapter: pre-test confidence levels, minutes of retrieval practice performed, and the test score. I gathered this data for the 6 chapter tests that I took over the course of the semester.

I analyzed this data to determine if there was a relationship between pre-test confidence levels and test scores by calculating the Pearson correlation coefficient and the coefficient of determination. These tests help to measure the strength of a linear correlation. I also tested for a correlation between the number of days of retrieval and test scores. My data indicated that there was a strong, positive correlation between the number of days of retrieval practice performed and my test scores. The coefficient of determination revealed that 66.5 percent of the test score variation could be attributed to the number of days of retrieval that I practiced leading up to a test. In other words—the more I practiced retrieval, the better I performed.

While the results of our 11 self studies are not necessarily applicable to a large population of students, their value lies in the replicability of our studies. I believe one of the main goals of conducting individual studies on retrieval practice in addition to our group study is to explore a variety of different experimental methods of implementing and measuring the impact of retrieval practice on student learning. It is our hope that these studies will inspire replication on a larger scale and future research on improving the student learning experience.
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