Misleading Guidance

Very recently, there has been a move in India to do away with public exams at least till the high school level and generally reduce exams in schools. I was therefore very surprised to see the article in the New York Times titled “ To really Learn, quit studying and take a Test” .

The author comes straight to the point in the first paragraph  “Taking a test is not just a passive mechanism for assessing how much people know, according to new research. It actually helps people learn, and it works better than a number of other studying techniques.”

There is an accompanying graph which is shown below,

The graph re emphasises  that learning through tests is the best way to learn. Piqued I tracked down the original paper "Retrieval Practice Produces More Learning than Elaborative Studying with Concept Mapping". The paper has the following graph amongst others; 

Retrieval practice clearly is the best. So are tests better ??

Reading the original paper  however provides an insight into what the “retrieval practice” actually refers to. Students in the experiment were actually asked to write a free form essay of the passage they had read  as compared to making a concept map as another group was asked to do.

The retrieval practice that is claimed  to  be superior is not the test but this practice of writing a free form essay. 

The NYT chart is definitely better at least for non-scientific readers.  Unfortunately, the write up in the chart and the article itself is clearly misleading.  I can imagine parents going through hoops and making their children do testing  “somersaults”,  all to no avail.

So what is our take away from all this ?

Whenever possible, refer to the original source of the ideas and concepts and the related data. One should be careful with secondary sources even if it is a reputed and respected publication.