Test yourself in the form you will need to use the knowledge
Closed-book testing can help beyond the exact words practiced. A synthesis of 192 comparisons involving more than 10,000 people found a small-to-moderate benefit for new question formats and application or inference questions. Transfer was weak when reversing questions and answers, or testing material that had only been studied and never practiced in a test.
What it takes
Nothing extra in money or time. Replace verbatim repetition with questions resembling the future task. First you must work out how you will use the material.
What you may gain
The meta-analysis covered more than 40 years of research: 67 published and unpublished articles, 122 experiments, 192 transfer effect sizes, and 10,382 participants. Compared with additional study without testing, practice testing transferred to other situations with d=0.40, 95% CI 0.31–0.50. Transfer was strongest for changes in question format, application and inference questions, medical diagnosis problems, and semantically related cue words. It was weakest for reversing stimulus and response, material encountered during initial study but never tested, and worked-example problems. Positive transfer depended strongly on matching practice and final response formats, retrieval practice with elaborated feedback, and success on the initial test. Two publication-bias corrections changed moderator effect sizes little but substantially reduced intercept estimates: without those supporting conditions, positive transfer was often absent.
Context & considerations
“Memorizing” can mean either looking over material again, as in rereading and highlighting, or actively recalling it with the book closed. The former received low ratings in the ten-technique review discussed in entry 16. Use the latter, as described in entry 14, and spread it across days as in entry 15. Decide whether you will need to select an answer on a written examination or make a judgment in a real situation, then practice that form. Practice in the reverse direction too: because transfer after reversing question and answer was particularly weak, both directions need their own practice.
Research & references
Pan SC, Rickard TC (2018). Transfer of test-enhanced learning: meta-analytic review and synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 144(7), 710–756. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000151