Memory-monitoring accuracy as influenced by the distribution of retrieval practice

Abstract

An experiment was done to determine whether retrieval practice improved judgment-of-learning (JOL) accuracy when degree of learning was controlled. Fifty undergraduate students were asked to learn a long list of unrelated facts, with critical items presented either once or four times. The repetitions of critical items were retrieval prompts for half of the subjects (study-test) and additional study presentations (study-only) for the other half of the subjects. The subjects made JOL ratings after the last occurrence of critical items. Immediately after the study list, they were given a cued-recall test. Recall was comparable for once-presented items and repeated items across the two groups, but JOL accuracy was higher for repeated items in the study-test group. These results confirm that retrieval practice enhances JOL accuracy even when degree of learning is controlled.