Spacing multiple study opportunities apart from one another is known by psy
chologists to be a highly effective study method (see Dempster, 1996). This
study examines whether including tests during study would produce practica
l benefits for learning beyond that provided by distributed study alone. In
addition, spacing of both study and test (massed, uniform distributed, and
expanding distributed) is investigated. To-be-remembered information was r
epeated with a single learning session (Experiment 1), reviewed immediately
after initial learning (Experiment 2), or reviewed days after initial lear
ning (Experiments 3 and 4). As expected, large distributed practice effects
were shown across experiments. In addition to these effects, testing produ
ced significant benefits for learning in all four experiments, which were o
f moderate or large size (Cohen's d of 0.52 to 1.30) for three experiments.
Expanding test spacing, however, did not independently benefit learning in
any of the learning situations studied. Educators should take advantage of
the large benefits that distributed study and testing have on learning by
spacing multiple tests of information within learning sessions and by distr
ibuting tests across multiple review sessions. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wile
y & Sons, Ltd.