KNOWLEDGE TAUGHT IN SCHOOL - WHAT IS REMEMBERED

Popular belief holds that much of what is taught in classrooms is forg otten shortly thereafter. However, there is evidence from numerous stu dies that long-term retention for knowledge taught in school is substa ntial. These studies are reviewed, and several variables that affect t he ability to remember are discussed. The article concludes that (a) s tudents retain much of the knowledge taught in the classroom; (b) rete ntion decreases over time as a function of the length of the retention interval but the forgetting curves for knowledge taught in school do not decline as rapidly or asymptote as low as the curves observed in t raditional laboratory studies; (c) increasing the level of original le arning differentially affects retention performance; (d) both instruct ional content and assessment tasks affect learning and retention, with one of the most consistent effects being that recognition tasks are r etained at higher levels than recall tasks; (e) most instructional str ategies that promote higher levels of original learning do not result in differentially better retention (however, several exceptions are di scussed); and (f) while higher ability students learn and remember mor e than lower ability students, there is no evidence for differential f orgetting. Implications for research and teaching are discussed.