Retrieval Practice Facilitates Judgments of Learning Through Multiple Mechanisms

Abstract Prior studies have shown that predictions of subsequent performance (i.e., Judgments of Learning, JoLs) following practice tests are more accurate than those following re-study. The majority of studies have suggested that retrieval practice allows people to base their predictions on the current retrieval outcomes so that they assign a higher likelihood of remembering the answers with high confidence. We speculated that other information made available through retrieval practice might also be important for JoLs. In the present study, we asked participants to study word pairs and undergo either a practice test or re-study. Two testing formats (cued-recall and multiple choice) were administrated for practice tests in two separate experiments. After each practice trial, participants rated their confidence in the current retrieval accuracy (test) or confidence in acquisition (re-study), followed by a JoL rating where participants predicted their performance in the final test one day later. The results of both experiments showed that the correlation between JoL ratings and the final accuracy was higher for trials practiced with testing. Moreover, using mediation analyses, we found that this high correspondence was only partially mediated by participants’ confidence in practice tests. More importantly, the reaction time of retrieval also significantly mediated the correspondence between JoLs and the final accuracy, suggesting that participants were able to correctly base their JoLs on multiple sources of information that is made available through retrieval practice. We conclude that practice testing benefits JoLs through multiple mechanisms.