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- Vol 5 RE: Chapter 7
pretestingunsuccessful retrievalgenerative learningfeedback-enhanced encodingcuriosity effectsretrieval attemptsmisconception correctionJournal article Evidence summaryAt a glance
Kornell, Hays, and Bjork ask whether attempting retrieval before receiving an answer helps or harms learning when the attempt is certain to fail. Participants saw unfamiliar or fictional general-knowledge questions, tried to generate answers, and then studied the correct responses.
Key ideas
Later memory was better than after studying intact question-and-answer pairs without the prior attempt. Experiments ruled out several simple explanations and showed that an unsuccessful search can prepare the learner to encode feedback more effectively. A question may activate related knowledge, focus attention on the relevant gap, create curiosity, and make the eventual answer more distinctive. The result does not justify prolonged guessing without correction. Benefits depend on prompt access to accurate feedback and a task in which the failed attempt engages relevant processing rather than reinforcing an attractive misconception.
Why it matters
Errorless study can feel efficient, yet it may produce weaker encoding than a brief challenge followed by resolution. The practical pattern is pretesting or prediction with low stakes: ask learners to commit to an answer, then reveal and explain the correct response and revisit it through later retrieval.
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Edition abbreviations
- TE
- Teacher Edition
- PE
- Practice Edition
- RE
- Research Edition
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