Department of Neurology, Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.
Med Educ. 2013 Jul;47(7):674-82. doi: 10.1111/medu.12141.
Educators often encourage students to engage in active learning by generating explanations for the material being learned, a method called self-explanation. Studies have also demonstrated that repeated testing improves retention. However, no studies have directly compared the two learning methods.
Forty-seven Year 1 medical students completed the study. All students participated in a teaching session that covered four clinical topics and was followed by four weekly learning sessions. In the learning sessions, students were randomised to perform one of four learning activities for each topic: testing with self-generated explanations (TE); testing without explanations (T); studying a review sheet with self-generated explanations (SE), and studying a review sheet without explanations (S). Students repeated the same activity for each topic in all four sessions. Six months later, they took a free-recall clinical application test on all four topics.
Repeated testing led to better long-term retention and application than repeatedly studying the material (p < 0.0001, η(2) = 0.33). Repeated generation of self-explanations also improved long-term retention and application, but the effect was smaller (p < 0.0001, η(2) = 0.08). When data were collapsed across topics, both testing conditions produced better final test performance than studying with self-explanation (TE = 40% > SE = 29% [p = 0.001, d = 0.70]; T = 36% > SE = 29% [p = 0.02, d = 0.48]). Studying with self-explanation led to better retention and application than studying without self-explanation (SE = 29% > S = 20%; p = 0.001, d = 0.68). Our analyses showed significant interaction by topic (p = 0.001, η(2) = 0.06), indicating some variation in the effectiveness of the interventions among topics.
Testing and generating self-explanations are both learning activities that can be used to produce superior long-term retention and application of knowledge, but testing is generally more effective than self-explanation alone.
教育者经常鼓励学生通过为所学材料生成解释来进行主动学习，这种方法称为自我解释。研究还表明，重复测试可以提高保留率。然而，尚无研究直接比较这两种学习方法。
47 名一年级医学生完成了这项研究。所有学生都参加了一个涵盖四个临床主题的教学课程，随后进行了四个每周的学习课程。在学习课程中，学生们被随机分配为每个主题执行四项学习活动之一：带有自我生成解释的测试（TE）；没有解释的测试（T）；使用自我生成的解释学习复习表（SE），以及使用没有解释的复习表学习（S）。学生在所有四个课程中对每个主题重复相同的活动。六个月后，他们对所有四个主题进行了自由回忆临床应用测试。
重复测试比反复学习材料导致更好的长期保留和应用（p<0.0001，η²=0.33）。重复生成自我解释也提高了长期保留和应用，但效果较小（p<0.0001，η²=0.08）。当数据跨主题汇总时，两种测试条件都比使用自我解释的学习产生更好的最终测试成绩（TE=40%>SE=29%[p=0.001，d=0.70]；T=36%>SE=29%[p=0.02，d=0.48]）。使用自我解释的学习比没有自我解释的学习导致更好的保留和应用（SE=29%>S=20%；p=0.001，d=0.68）。我们的分析显示出主题之间存在显著的交互作用（p=0.001，η²=0.06），表明干预措施在主题之间的有效性存在一些差异。
测试和生成自我解释都是可以用来产生更好的长期保留和应用知识的学习活动，但测试通常比单独的自我解释更有效。
