Is it true that testing yourself can improve learning?

Question

I have come across some information suggesting that self-testing might be useful when learning some material. Is this claim valid?

Answer 1

Self-testing on the material may be one of the most beneficial strategies for studying and learning new concepts. In some studies, it has been shown that self-testing shortly after additional learning new information can greatly decrease the rate of forgetting. This approach is more effective than repeatedly reading or listening to the material. Testing yourself gives an active approach by pointing out the gaps in knowledge which need to be covered, thus, helping in memory retention.

Comments

Little tip: After your focused bout of studying, note taking, and learning. Take those notes and paste them into chatgpt and ask it to give you a test with short open ended minimal prompt questions on the material. I did this with the material from this podcast and I'll never go back to flashcards and other time consuming ways of self testing. Thank you Andrew!

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I am currently studying Statistics and for a woman who failed her math in the 90s to suddenly being able to remember basic statistics from the test method you gave wow ! I woke up this morning and was even clearer in my mind it’s unbelievable! You have completely turned around how I will study now all my subjects by taking notes and making questions and answers instead of the method previously and going over them all day and morning wow !!  Thank you so incredibly much for this super cool podcast I’m sure will help so many stuck in a bad studying loop!

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In 1986 i got a job teaching part time. I never taught before The first class was the 2 hours after i got the job completely unprepared. The first class i gave( in computing)  was the P QRST method of learning.  preview, question, read, self recite, test. Good to see that almost 40 years later its endorsed by science. And yes, i had a number of students in the top 10 in the country as a result, out of over 2000 students.

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I honestly think there should be more podcasts infused with quizzes. It is extremely useful and very rewarding for the listener which gets the feedback immediately, thus feeling and being more engaged.

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I’m only halfway through this and every single point/element has already been SO HELPFUL!!! I love the interval quizzes

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Just like Goggins once said on Modern Wisdom Podcast, you're a very knowledgeable man. A lot of people will benefit from this episode. It's worth reading (at least) twice. Thank you very much!

Vinícius from Brazil.

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Just marking this here as one of the key points of this lecture, many thanks Dr Huberman

"When you take a test on the material you just engaged with, you half the amount of forgetting that would normally occur"

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Great session.
The best parts are: 1 :case study on three groups
2: mediation techniques
3: Subjective questions are more useful than  multiple choices
4: Self evaluation.

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My teachers in class always told us to help our friends when they were struggling with some questions, highlighting that teaching your friends would help us more than it would to our friends. And one professor in uni also encouraged us to resolve each other's queries before finally reaching out to them as the last resort. This episode really reaffirms why.

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Will you start posting a quiz with answers at the end of every podcast from now on? That would be very helpful, especially for those longer podcasts!