Despite this, much of Carrier’s (2003) findings were based upon correlational research by Mackenzie (1994) who concludes rereading has alarmingly low utility. Mackenzie (1994) conjured this statement because the information remembered by participants was largely insignificant and content poor when tested. Furthermore, the data collected was not only correlational (hence a definite causal link cannot be established between the effectiveness of study strategy and examination scores) but the participants were not of typical university student age and were 67% women. This means the results cannot be generalised to all genders meaning they lack empiricism as it is not applicable to all psychology students. On the contrary Mackenzie (1994) findings are ethnically diverse, this provides stability cross-culturally meaning results can be applied to psychology students worldwide.
An advantage of using rereading as a studying strategy to enhance learning is that students do not require training before utilising it as it is viewed as an almost innate technique by the British educational system. However, according to research implemented by Karpicke and Blunt (2011) rereading is at its peak efficacy when the text is reread …show more content…
Practice testing is whereby an individual investigates how much knowledge they have of a given topic within a revision period, by retrieving pre-learnt information without help from content material. Dunlosky et al. (2013) deems practice testing as having high utility compared to other learning techniques as it produces learning enhancing “testing effects”. Carpenter et al. (2011) found a direct effect of information retention amount between an individual’s performance and when they were practice tested, when compared to solely rereading material. This suggests that practice testing is more beneficial to a student than rereading to enhance learning. A similar idea was portrayed by Pyc and Rawson (2010,2012b) who proposed that practice testing improved testing effects and memory retention when an individual conjured cues relative to desired elaborative information. This increases encoded information rather than that of restudying a text. Pyc and Rawson (2012b) found changes in learning when students were practice tested rather than singularly rereading material. They found that within a one-week delay, when asked to recall and elaborate upon previously learnt information, practice tested individuals would refer back to cues prompting their knowledge and remembered more mediator cues than those who only restudied their text and cues. These findings suggest that practice testing has high utility in reference