Objective: The NBME Psychiatry Subject Examination (PSE) is used throughout North America to test MS-III end-of-clerkship knowledge; yet, literature on PSE preparatory methods remains sparse. This study assesses the effect of a curriculum intervention on NBME PSE scores. Method: An optional 1.5-hour review session and accompanying…

Explored the effect of different review opportunities on students' memory awareness and schematization. Findings for 88 college students in phase 1 and 140 in phase 2 show that students are more likely to shift from "remembering" to "learning" if they have the opportunity to review learning material regularly and in different…

Interviewed students about their experiences preparing for final university examinations. Analyzed processes of learning used during review, and in particular, the ways in which understanding and memorizing were described. Found that one recurring aspect of the review process involved the creation of "knowledge objects"--tightly structured,…

Investigated the effectiveness of H. Wainer's (1993) strategy for obtaining positively biased ability estimates when examinees can review and change answers on computerized adaptive tests. Results, based on simulation and testing data from 87 college students, show that the Wainer strategy sometimes yields inflated ability estimates and sometimes…

Investigated the effects of immediate and delayed review occasion and study materials (text, text plus outlines, and text plus graphic organizers) in two experiments involving 198 undergraduates. Delayed review facilitated performance for students who viewed text plus graphic organizers but not for those who viewed only text or text plus outlines.…

Recent advances in technology have made it easy to provide students an outline or some form of notes prior to lectures and for later review. To test the efficacy of instructor-provided notes, 74 students studied lecture material under one of four conditions, in groups of 4 or 5 students. Some listened and took notes as their normal strategy.…

An attempt is made to manipulate depth of processing by inserting in text verbatim, paraphrase, or inference questions after every paragraph of the passage. Findings are discussed in terms of a "levels of processing" analysis. (Author/GK)

Compared results from computer-adaptive and self-adaptive tests under conditions in which item review was and was not permitted for 379 college students. Results suggest that, when given the opportunity, most examinees will change answers, but usually only to a small portion of items, resulting in some benefit to the test taker. (SLD)

Research has shown that students who take notes remember more than do students who do not take notes, and that test performance is enhanced for students who are given an opportunity to review their notes compared to those who are not. However, research has not offered instructors and students specific guidelines regarding when review of notes in…

Two experiments were performed with college students to study memory monitoring during the learning of word lists. Both experiments suggested that successful monitoring to decide which items were already encoded did not occur during presentation of material but was restricted to recall trials. (Author/BS)

Examines the relationship of study techniques and test-taking strategies to success on the "O" level of the British General Certificate of Education (GCE) examination. Findings showed that teachers and students felt that course reviews, including study of past examinations, was the best preparation. (AM)

Two experiments were performed to determine whether questions inserted after prose passages initiate reviews which facilitate retention of the information in memory. Results suggest that the backward review is not attributed to a retrieval phenomenon but to a strengthening of memory traces at the time of the probe. (Author/GK)

Seven experiments involving a total of 203 college students explored a form of object-specific priming and established a robust object-specific benefit that indicates that a new stimulus will be named faster if it physically matches a previous stimulus seen as part of the same perceptual object. (SLD)

Four different methods for attending to a lecture were studied: listening, listening with an outline, note-taking, and note-taking with an outline. Each method was designed to influence the learner's level of processing and, therefore, to effect the encoding and retrieval of information from a lecture. In addition, the effects of no review or…

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of note taking and reviewing on learning from text. The findings supported the encoding function of note taking and demonstrated that unguided elaboration hindered performance on teacher-made tests. (Author/GK)