The Effect Of Retrieve Practice On Problem Solving Skills Learning

Retrieval practice effect or testing effect is that after an initial study period, taking a practice test improves long-term retention compared to restudy. It was a significant finding from cognitive psychology recently decades, which showed that the retrieval practice could effectively promoted memory retention, and was effectively used in the field of eduction, such as classroom learning materials (word lists, prose, the fact, speech,word pairs and so on). However, the studies showed that the learning materials were mostly declarative knowledge, but to solve the problem of procedural knowledge for the application was less. Now it had been not found a evidence that retrieval practice effect could be usded to problem solving skills learning. Therefore, on this basis, this study used the example as learning materials and took the difficulty of retrieval for the main line of the experimental study. We continued to explore the effect of retrieval practice on problem solving skill learning by three experiments. The first experiment manipulated the difficulty of initial test as a variable, to explore the effect of retrieval practice on problem solving skill under difference of initial test difficulty condition. The second experiment manipulated the material difficulty, to explore the effect of retrieval practice on problem solving skill under difference of material property. The third experiment introduced the feedback difficulty, to investigate the effect of retrieval practice on problem solving skill under difference of feedback difficulty.Through this research, we drew the conculsion as follows:Firstly, by the three experiments, this study found retrieval practice did not prompt delayed testing (compared to restudy). There was no evidence that retrieval practice promoted problem solving skill learning. Beacuse retrieval practice effect might decrease or disappear with complex learning tasks which were high interactivity between elements. The difference of initial testing, material properties and feedback could not promote the effective of retrieval practice on problem solving skill learning.Secondly, it seemed that retrieval practice could not promote problem solving skills learning. Because problem solving mateiral which was one of the complexity of learning materials, might reduce or eliminate the retrieval practice effect or testing effect (relative to restudy). It meant reducing the effectiveness of retrieval because the the "organizational or relational processing" afforded by retrieval no longer presented a benefit, or by increasing the effectiveness of restudy (relative to retrieval), by affording relation processing between elements and promoting stduent motivation (relative to retrieval).