Top 10 Benefits of Testing Infographic

Testing gets a bad rap, because it’s usually associated with the nerve-wracking, ‘high-stakes’ assessments students get at the end of every year – from GCSE’s to A-Level to University exams. But testing can also be a very useful studying technique, allowing you to objectively test your own knowledge and identify weak areas.

In a paper, ’10 Benefits of Testing And Their Applications to Educational Practice’, Roediger et al identify (as the title suggests) 10 reasons why students should utilise regular, low-stakes quizzing as a study strategy – and they have been summarised in the Top 10 Benefits of Testing Infographic!

Some key highlights from the infographic:

Testing ourselves can considerably slow down the rate at which we forget information.
Testing also gives students an opportunity to identify their own weak areas.
Often, simply repeating the same material can lead students to believe they have mastered a particular area, but testing allows them to check this objectively.
Repeated testing helps retention as well as students’ ability to apply knowledge to new contexts.
By default, most students would choose not to test themselves as tests are associated with the ‘high stakes’ testing at the end of term which can be stressful.
But having frequent tests and quizzes actually motivates students to study more efficiently.

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