Running Head: ARTICLE SUMMARIES

ARTICLE SUMMARIES

Name
Institution
Date

ARTICLE SUMMARIES

Carpenter, S. K., Pashler, H., & Cepeda, N. J. (2009). Using Tests to Enhance 8th Grade Students'
Retention of US History Facts. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 23, 760-771
The article is based on research carried out to find out how tests can be used to enhance
content retention of the US history facts in 8th grade students. The research had no definite
research question but it was guided by whether testing affected the long term retention of course
knowledge. In light of this, the hypothesis being tested was that testing led to long term retention
of course knowledge in US history facts for 8th grade students. The sample that was guided by
the chosen methodology constituted of students from the 8th grade. The sample had a total of 75
students with 44 being female and 31 being male.
The research was based on the wider domain of education psychology with focus on
cognition and testing and evaluation. The task of the research saw the sample divided randomly
into two groups; the Immediate Review Group which had 37 participants and the Delayed
Review Group with 38 participants. The study was carried out approximately for one year during
which questions for the study were constructed from material covered in class. Consent was
sought from respondents as well as their parents. The study saw students provided with 45
different questions in three different sets and they were administered at different times in 16
week intervals. There was a final testing done at the end of the study.
The dependent variable of the study was the retention rate of US history facts by the 8th
grade students while the independent variable was the administered tests. The study found out
that the facts that were tested were better retained than those that were reviewed through
restudying. Such findings indicate that that testing can be used as a long term measure to
enhance retention of course knowledge.

ARTICLE SUMMARIES

Kimberly M. Fenn, David A. Gallo, Daniel Margoliash, et al. (2009) Reduced False Memory
after Sleep. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
The article is based on a study carried out to find out how sleep affected false memory. It
has no definite research question but the hypothesis being tested is that sleep reduces false
memories. There were three experiments carried out and in all of them, the participants were
right-handed native English speakers with no history of speech, hearing, or memory disorders.
The study focused on the domain of psychology testing on cognition and recall. It involved the
task of reading a list of words randomly assigned to experimental or control conditions. The
participants were to then try and recall these words after a period of time with sleep or no sleep.
The experimental design saw participants went on 12 hour sleep or wake sessions after which
they either presented the words orally over headphones or pointed them out on a computer
screen.
The study indicated that there were many unrelated biases for the recall of words such as
age and personal preferences and they therefore contributed to a certain level of bias.
Nonetheless, the study found out that there was a correlation between sleep and recall with
participants who did not record enough sleep having false memory on items they had not
registered before while those who had slept scored higher in recall. The suggestion is that
recognition is especially higher in the morning right after waking up. This conclusion is however
largely unsupported by the study as the sleep and wake durations were during different times of
the day.
Agarwal, P. K., Karpicke, J. D., Kang, S. H. K., Roediger III, H. L., & McDermott, K. B. (2008).
Examining the Testing Effect with Open-And Closed-Book Tests. Applied Cognitive Psychology

ARTICLE SUMMARIES

The article is based on a study carried out to find out the testing effect when tests are
based on both open and closed books. Despite not having a definite research question, the study
tested the hypothesis that testing effect occurs in both open and closed book tests. The study
consisted of thirty-six subjects with 26 of them being females. The subjects, aged between 1824
years old were recruited from the Washington University in St. Louis Department of Psychology
human subject pool. The study was based on the domain of educational psychology with focus
on cognition, testing and evaluation.
In the study, the subjects were provided with prose passages of about 1000 words each.
The passages were selected from a textbook used in education with each covering a different
topic and each had a corresponding test that consisted of seven short answer questions that were
based on facts that were contained in the passages. Participants read without knowing whether to
anticipate a closed book test, an open book test or no test at all.
Based on the findings, the experiments demonstrated that the testing effect occurred with
both open- and closed book tests. The subjects failed to predict the effectiveness of testing
relative to studying in enhancing later recall. As such, studying offers a better chance at recall
and cognition than an open-book test does.

References
Agarwal, P. K., Karpicke, J. D., Kang, S. H. K., Roediger III, H. L., & McDermott, K. B. (2008).
Examining the Testing Effect with Open-And Closed-Book Tests. Applied Cognitive
Psychology. 22, 861-876.

ARTICLE SUMMARIES
Carpenter, S. K., Pashler, H., & Cepeda, N. J. (2009). Using Tests to Enhance 8th Grade
Students' Retention of US History Facts. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 23, 760-771
Kimberly M. Fenn, David A. Gallo, Daniel Margoliash, et al. (2009) Reduced False Memory
after Sleep. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. 16, 509-513