Memory models typically assume that recall is a two-stage process with learning affecting both processes to the same degree. This equal learning assumption is difficult to reconcile with studies of the 'testing effect', which reveal different forgetting rates following learning from test practice versus learning from restudy. Here we present a new memory model, termed Primary and Convergent Retrieval (PCR) that assumes successful recall leads to a selective enhancement for the second stage of recall (Convergent Retrieval). We applied this model to existing testing effect data. In two new experiments, we confirmed novel predictions of the PCR model for transfer between retrieval cues and for recall latencies. This is the first formally specified model of the testing effect and it has broad implications for the nature of learning and retrieval.

Cognitive scientists and psychology researchers have given growing attention to evidence of the testing effect, that is, the improvement of students' recall through memory-retrieval practice in the form of quizzes and exams. While laboratory experiments consistently show dramatic positive effects on learning through the testing effect, discipline-specific education researchers have sought to generalize these findings in real, instead of simulated classrooms. The objective of this dissertation was threefold: (1) To survey the current literature on the testing-effect as it applies to learning biology at the post-secondary level. In this review, I consider how further research on the testing effect may be useful for instructors' decisions regarding its use. (2) To describe findings from a qua¬si-experimental design in a post-secondary biology class with low and high point incentives and measured student learning. Although exposure to exams predicted better learning, incentive level did not moderate this effect, an outcome that contradicted recent laboratory findings that higher incentives decreased student recall. (3) To describe findings from a study that compared student learning in conditions where cued exams were in place versus conditions in which they were absent. Student learning improved in the former condition relative to the latter. I discuss the implications of the results in all of these studies for further research and application.

For teachers and students to be able to make informed decisions about how to best improve learning, it is important to compare learning strategies that are known to be effective. Both multimedia learning, based on the notion that individuals learn better from words and pictures presented together than from words alone, and retrieval practice, based on the idea that retrieving knowledge from the memory is an active process that has a beneficial impact on learning, have been found robust learning strategies in earlier research. However, the two strategies remain to be investigated in combination. The combination of the two seemingly robust strategies was investigated in Study I and results showed a modest effect of retrieval practice in terms of decreased forgetting and a strong effect of multimedia learning. Retrieval practice did not improve memory performance beyond the beneficial effect of using a visual illustration. Study II investigated the beneficial effects of the use of visual illustrations in more detail in terms of preferred learning style (visual, verbal or mixed), a notion that has reached wide popular ac- ceptance within the educational field. Support was not found for the learning styles hypothesis. Rather, results showed that the positive effects of learning with the aid of a visual illustration holds independently of preferred learning style, which renders strong support for multimedia learning in terms of its generalizability. Most interestingly, students with mixed or visual learning styles performed generally better on the learning test than students with a verbal learning style, which may imply that it is worthwhile to help students develop a preference for visual or multimodal aspects of information pro- cessing in order to further improve learning. The findings presented in this thesis provide new knowledge regarding the combination of learning strate- gies and contribute with important insights into the relation between learning style and the use of visual illustrations in psychology teaching. The findings also pose challenges for students and teachers, as well as people designing learning materials, concerning how to approach the use of visual illustrations and retrieval practice in teaching and learning.

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Judgments of Learning (JOL) that are made after a delay, instead of immediately after study, are more accurate in terms of predicting later recall (the delayed JOL effect). The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (SFP) theory explains the delayed JOL effect as the result of a testing effect. In the current study we tested the prediction that performing delayed JOLs leads to a memory improvement. During learning, 79 participants studied Swahili-Swedish word pairs, immediately followed by a cued recall test, and then made either one single or three repeated, spaced JOLs. A final cued recall test was given after either 5 minutes or 1 week. Making repeated JOLs did not increase memory performance compared to the single JOL condition, hence lending no support to the SFP theory. However, making repeated JOLs did improve their relative accuracy, which suggests that the delayed JOL effect mainly concerns memory monitoring and not performance.

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Under de senaste åren har intresset för test baserat lärande ökat och det förekommer evidensatt detta fenomen fungerar inom flera områden som bland annat test format, personligaegenskaper samt återkoppling från ett test. En aspekt som det däremot finns få studier av ärtestbaserat lärande i relation till individuella skillnader i kognition. Den föreliggande studienfokuserar därför på individuella skillnader avseende arbetsminneskapacitet och episodisktminne och dess effekter på ihågkomst av svenska-swahili-ordpar. I studien ingick 163gymnasieelever, varav 82 var flickor och 81 var pojkar med en medelålder om 17.10 år.Multipla regressionsanalyser undersökte deltagarnas förmåga att minnas 60 svenska-swahiliordparfyra veckor efter inlärningsperioden. Analysen visade att både arbetsminneskapacitetoch episodiskt minne predicerar långtidsretention för studerade ordpar. För testbaserat lärandevar det endast det episodiska minnet som signifikant predicerade retentionen. Studien indikeraratt det episodiska minnet, är centralt både för att studera ordpar och att lära in ordpar genomtestbaserat lärande. Däremot är det enbart arbetsminnet som har betydelse för att lära sig ordparvia att studera ordparen. / During the last years, the interest for test-enhanced learning have increased and robust evidenceconcerning test format, personal characteristics and feedback have been obtained. However,few studies have examined test-enhanced learning in relation to cognition. The present studytherefore focused on examine the individual differences in working memory capacity and theepisodic memory and the effects of those on recall of Swedish- Swahili word pairs. The studyincluded 163 students whereof 82 girls were and 81 were boys, with a mean age of 17.10 years.Multiple regressions investigated whether the participated could correctly recall 60 Swedish-Swahili word pairs four weeks after the learning session. The analysis showed that both theepisodic memory and working memory capacity predicted long-term retention for studied wordpairs. For test based learning only the episodic memory had a significant prediction for longterm retention. The study indicate that the episodic memory is central both for learning throughstudy and learning through test-enhanced learning. While working memory was important onlylearning through study.

En ökad efterfrågan på talare av mandarin kinesiska (hädanefterkinesiska) i väst har lett till ett ökat behov av högkvalitetsundervisning i kinesiska. I den här undersökningen studerade 24 svenska modersmålstalare utan tidigare kinesisk språkerfarenhet 60 svenska ord i kombination med deras kinesiska motsvarighet. Hälften av paren lärdes genom upprepade studier (där ordparen presenteras samtidigt) och hälften av paren genom aktiv minneshämtning (där ordparen presenteras separat). Varaktigheten av upprepade studieroch aktiva minneshämtningen likställdes. Alla de kinesiska tecknen presenterades tillsammans med en fonologisk representation. Efter att ha lärtde 60 ordparen, utfördesett flervalstest för att bedöma läranderesultatet. För att testa för den fonologiska representationens betydelse vid inlärning så presenterades hälften av ordparen från varje betingelse utan deras fonologiska representation under testningen. Logistikblandade modellerfann att prestationvar signifikant bättre förupprepade studier jämfört med aktiv minneshämtningoch att tillgång till en fonologisk representation under testninginte gav signifikant bättre testprestanda. / An increased demand for speakers of Mandarin Chinese (henceforth Chinese) in the West has lead to an increased need for high quality teaching of Chinese. In the present study, 24 native Swedish speakers with no prior Chinese language experience studied 60 Swedish words paired with their Chinese equivalents. Half of the pairs were learned by repeated studying (with the word pairs presented simultaneously) and half of the pairs by active retrieval (with the word pairs presented separately). The durations of repeated study and active memory retrieval were equated. All the Chinese characters were presented along with a phonological representation. After learning the 60 word pairs, a multiple-choice test was conducted to assess learning outcome. To test for for the importance of the phonological representation, half of the word pairs learnt in each condition had the representation removed during testing. Logistic mixed models found that performance was significantly better for repeated studying compared to active memory retrieval and that having access to a phonological representation during testing did not yield significantly better test performance. Keywords: Mandarin Chinese, second language learning, the testing effect

A primary goal of education is the acquisition of durable knowledge which challenges the use of efficient pedagogical methods of how to best facilitate learning. Research in cognitive psychology has demonstrated that repeated testing during the learning phase improves performance on later retention tests compared to restudy of material. This empirical phenomenon is called the testing effect. The testing effect has shown to be robust across different kinds of material and when compared to different pedagogical methods. Despite the extensive number of published papers on the testing effect, the majority of the studies have been conducted in the laboratory. More specific, few studies have examined the testing effect in authentic settings when using course material during the progress of a course. Further, few studies have investigated the beneficial effects with test-enhanced learning by the use of neuroimaging methods (e.g. fMRI). The aim with the thesis was to investigate the effects of test-enhanced learning in an authentic educational context and how this is related to individual differences in working memory capacity (Study I and II) as well as changes in brain activity involved in successful repeated testing and long term retention (Study III). In study I, we examined whether repeated testing with feedback benefitted learning compared to rereading of introductory psychology key concepts in a sample of undergraduate students. The results revealed that repeated testing with feedback was superior compared to rereading both immediate after practice and at longer delays. The effect of repeated testing was beneficial for students irrespectively of WMC. In Study II, we investigated test-enhanced learning in relation to the encoding variability hypothesis for the learning of mathematics in a sample of fifth-grade children. Learning was examined in relation to both practiced and transfer tasks. No differences were found for the practiced tasks. Regarding the transfer tasks, the results gave support for the encoding variability hypothesis, but only at the immediate test. In contrast, when we followed up the durability of learning across time, the results showed that taking the same questions over and over again during the intervention resulted in better performance across time compared to variable encoding. Individual differences in WMC predicted performance on the transfer tasks, but only at the immediate test, regardless of group. Together, the results from Study I and Study II clearly indicate that testenhanced learning is effective in authentic settings, across age-groups and also produces transfer. Integrate current findings from cognitive science, in terms of test-enhanced learning, by the use of authentic materials and assessments relevant for educational goals can be rather easily done with vi computer based tasks. The observed influence of individual differences in WMC between the studies warrant further study of its specific contribution to be able to optimize the learning procedure. In Study III, we tested the complementary hypothesis regarding the mechanisms behind memory retrieval. Recurrent retrieval may be efficient because it induces representational consistency or, alternatively, because it induces representational variability - the altering or adding of underlying representations as a function of successful repeated retrieval. A cluster in right superior parietal cortex was identified as important for items successfully repeatedly retrieved Day 1, and also correctly remembered Day 7, compared to those successfully repeatedly retrieved Day 1 but forgotten Day 7. Representational similarity analysis in this region gave support for the theoretical explanations that emphasis semantic elaboration.

Resultat från TIMS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, 2019) visar att svenska elever presterar under genomsnittet i matematik både i årskurs fyra och i årskurs åtta. År 2020 sammanfattade Skolinspektionen tre områden som är avgörande för bättre kvalitet i skolan och som sammanfaller väl med bland annat testbaserat lärande. Skolinspektionens (2020) sammanfattning och testbaserat lärandets gemensamma nämnare är vikten av att ha tydliga lärandemål, skapa en varierad och anpassad undervisning som ger elever stimulans och utmaningar efter varje elevs förutsättningar, med stöd av läraren, samt betydelsen av elevers delaktighet och möjlighet till formativa återkoppling.  Mot den bakgrunden samt att det finns grundlig forskning kring testbaserat lärande som högeffektiv inlärningsstrategi analyserades sex lärares erfarenheter av implementeringsarbetet kring testbaserat lärande. Utöver det gjordes en kvantitativ studie inom testbaserat lärande i ämnet matematik. Studien utgår från kognitionsteori och har lärarperspektiv samt en teoretisk referensram i litteratur och artiklar från främst de senaste årtiondena. Efter implementeringen av testbaserat lärande intervjuades sex lärare på en F-6 skola vars undervisning (minst 75 procent av undervisningstillfällena) hade innehållit minst en testbaserad uppgift per lektion under sex veckor. Uppsatsens kvalitativa studie visade lärarnas reaktioner efter implementeringsperioden. De uttryckte en trygghet och motivation i implementeringsarbetet samt hur deras lektionsdesign hade förändrats genom återhämtningsaktiviteterna. De sex lärarna förmedlade också en överraskande positiv upplevelse kring den återkoppling som de testbaserade aktiviteterna gav eleven och läraren, med större möjlighet för läraren att justera sin undervisning för högre måluppfyllelse.Den kvantitativa studien som gjordes i ämnet matematik (aritmetik) i årskurs fyra och fem under en sex-veckors period var en mix av testbaserat lärande (retrieval practice) och delvis inflätat lärande (interleaved practice). Studien med de förutsättningar som gavs visade att testbaserade aktiviteter adderat till delvis inflätat lärande inte höjde resultaten i interventionsgruppen. Vid analysen framkom olika anledningar till resultatet som till exempel utformning och frekvens av de testbaserade aktiviteterna i planeringsschemat, lärarna och elevernas oerfarenhet inom området samt val av interventionsgrupp. / Results from TIMS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, 2019) show that Swedish students perform below average in mathematics for, both in grade four and in grade eight. In 2020, the Skolinsepktionen summarized three areas that are crucial for better quality in schools and that coincide well with, among other things, retrieval practice. Skolverket's (2022) summary and retrieval practice common denominator is the importance of having clear learning goals, creating varied and adapted teaching that gives students stimulation and challenges according to each student's conditions, with the support of the teacher, as well as the importance of student participation and the opportunity for formative feedback. With that background and the fact that there is thorough research on retrieval practice as a highly effective learning method, six teachers' experiences of the implementation work of retrieval practice are analyzed in this essay. In addition to that, a quantitative study is carried out in test-based learning in the subject of mathematics. The study is based on cognitive theory and has a teacher's perspective as well as a theoretical frame of reference in literature and articles from mainly recent decades.  After the implementation of retrieval practice, six teachers were interviewed at an F-6 school whose instruction (at least 75% of the time) had included at least one retrieval practice activity per lesson for six weeks. The essay's qualitative study shows the teachers' positive reactions after the implementation period. They also express a sense of security and motivation in the implementation work and how their lesson design has changed through the recovery activities. The six teachers also convey a surprisingly positive experience regarding the feedback that the retrieval practice activities provide to the student and the teacher, with greater opportunity for the teacher to adjust their teaching for higher goal achievement. The quantitative study that is done in the subject of mathematics (arithmetic) in grades four and five during a six-week period is a mix of retrieval practice and interleaved practice. The study with the conditions provided showed that retrieval practice activities added to interleaved practice did not increase the results in the intervention group. During the analysis, various reasons emerged for the result, such as the design of the retrieval practices activities, frequency of the retrieval practices activities in the planning schedule, the teachers' and students' inexperience in the field, and the choice of intervention group.