Graduate Theses and Dissertations
Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and
Dissertations
2017
The effects of prequestions on classroom learning
Shuhebur Rahman
Iowa State University
Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd
Part of the Behavioral Neurobiology Commons, Biological Psychology Commons, Cognitive
Psychology Commons, and the Educational Psychology Commons
This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital
Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital
Repository. For more information, please contact digirep@iastate.edu.
Recommended Citation
Rahman, Shuhebur, “The effects of prequestions on classroom learning” (2017). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 15611.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/15611
The effects of prequestions on classroom learning
by
Shuhebur Rahman
A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF SCIENCE
Major: Psychology
Program of Study Committee:
Shana Carpenter, Major Professor
Patrick I. Armstrong
Clark R. Coffman
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa
2017
Copyright © Shuhebur Rahman, 2017. All rights reserved.
ii
DEDICATION
I dedicate my thesis to my family and friends. A special thanks goes to Nurun Begum who
encouraged me to push on even during the tough times. This thesis, and this journey, would
not have been made possible if not for you, my dear friend.
I also dedicate this thesis to my many friends from the Iowa State Psychology program. I am
truly glad we found each other and over time have created a group I call “the academic
avengers”. Thank you Julio Rivers for being our Captain America and for supporting me and
the group during our best and worst of times.
Lastly I’d like to thank my cognitive psychology “family”. Thank you to my “older sisters”
Sara Davis and Krista Manley for providing guidance and support when I needed it. A
special thank you to my “younger sister” Rachel Dianiska for all the smiles and good times
we’ve shared. I am so proud to have spent this time with you three and to have seen you all
become fantastic researchers and human beings. I look forward to keeping up with all of your
future publications and presentations.
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
LIST OF FIGURES ………………………………………………………………………………………
iv
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ……………………………………………………………………………..
v
ABSTRACT……………………………….
……………………………………………………..
vi
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Benefits of Retrieval Practice …………………………………………………………………..
1
Benefits of Prequestions ………………………………………………………………………….
4
Prequestions with Lecture Materials
………………………………………………………….
7
CHAPTER 2: EXPERIMENT 1
……………………………………………………………………..
11
Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………………
11
Hypothesis and Predictions
………………………………………………………………………
12
Methods
……………………………………………………………………………………………
13
Results
……………………………………………………………………………………………
20
Discussion …………………………………………………………………………………………… 24
CHAPTER 3: GENERAL DISCUSSION ……………………………………………………….
26
REFERENCES …………………………………………………………………………………………….
31
iv
LIST OF FIGURES
Page
Figure 1: Class activities throughout the semester for the Prequestion Group
and the Control Group …………………………………………………………………….
16
Figure 2: Proportion of points earned on the in-class questions for both the
Prequestion Group and the Control Group. ………………………………………..
22
Figure 3 Proportion of points earned on the review quizzes for both the
Prequestion Group and the Control Group. ………………………………………..
23
v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my committee chair, Shana Carpenter and my committee
members, Patrick Armstrong and Clark Coffman, for their guidance and support throughout
the course of this thesis.
I would like to extend a special thank you to my major professor, Shana Carpenter,
for all of her guidance and support over the last three years. Thank you for all the advice with
the design and execution of my thesis experiment. I’d also like to thank her for all the hours
spent on revising my thesis.
In addition, I would also like to thank my friends, colleagues, the department faculty
and staff for making my time at Iowa State University a wonderful experience.
vi
ABSTRACT
Previous laboratory studies have shown that the use of prequestions (questions
deployed prior to a learning episode) improves students’ learning. The current study
addressed whether these same effects would occur when using prequestions in a classroom
setting. In a classroom study the effects of prequestions on immediate and on delayed
retention were assessed where some students received questions before lecture (Prequestion
Group) and other students did not (Control Group). To determine the immediate effects of
prequestions all students were given an end of class quiz in which students in the Prequestion
Group had to answer the prequestions as well as a never-before-seen question on material
they covered in that day’s lecture. Students in the Control Group had to answer two never-
before-seen questions on material they covered in that day’s lecture. Results from this
experiment showed that within the Prequestion Group students did better on prequestioned
material than on non-prequestioned material, replicating previous findings on the effects of
prequestions. Additionally there was no difference in the learning of non-prequestioned
material between the Prequestion Group and Control Group. On a delayed retention test
students (both in the Prequestion and Control Group) did better on questions they saw before
(on the end-of-class quiz) compared to questions they did not see before. This finding
replicates findings from the testing effect literature. Students in the Prequestion Group, who
saw one question both at the beginning and end of class, did not perform significantly better
on this question on the delayed test compared to the question they only saw at the end of
class. Overall these findings suggest that prequestions can improve learning of the
prequestioned material without hurting the learning of non-prequestioned material. The
vii
findings also suggest that retrieval practice improves the retention of material that was tested
at the end of class compared to no test at all, but seeing a question before class added little
benefit to this effect.
1
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
It should come as no surprise that most students have a natural desire to learn and do
well in school. Both poor performing students, and those who excel in their classes, seek
ways to improve their learning. Yet often students approach learning in sub-optimal ways.
Recent studies that surveyed students’ study habits have shown that students frequently do
not choose the most beneficial study techniques (Karpicke, Butler, & Roediger, 2009; Yan,
Thai, & Bjork, 2014). One potential way to improve students’ learning is by having them use
techniques that have been demonstrated to work. One well-studied method for improving
students’ learning is retrieval practice.
Benefits of retrieval practice
Retrieval practice refers to the beneficial effects of retrieval on memory. For example,
students remember information better in the future if they retrieve that information on a test,
than if they are simply re-exposed to the material such as through restudying it or rereading
it. In the laboratory, Carpenter (2011) evaluated the impact of retrieval practice on learning.
Participants in this study reviewed a series of word pairs in preparation for later testing. After
an initial study phase, half of the participants were re-exposed to the word pair for restudy
(restudy condition) whereas the other half was given a word prompt to recall the target word
from each word pair (retrieval practice condition). Both groups were then tested after a short
delay on the entire list of word pairs. Participants who engaged in retrieval practice
performed significantly better on the posttest than participants who engaged in restudy.
Similar findings have been reported in other laboratory investigations (Carpenter, 2009;
2
Carpenter & DeLosh, 2006; Pyc &Rawson, 2010; Roediger & Butler, 2011; Roediger &
Karpicke, 2006; Rowland, 2014).
Previous studies have shown the benefit of retrieval practice in classroom settings as
well. Carpenter, Pashler, and Cepeda (2009) examined memory for history facts in 8th grade
students who reviewed a portion of the material through retrieval practice (i.e., active
testing), through re-studying, or did not review the material at all. The investigators
demonstrated that on a follow-up retention test conducted 9 months later, material reviewed
via retrieval practice was remembered significantly better than material that was either
restudied or not reviewed at all.
McDaniel, Wildman, and Anderson (2012) also explored the effects of retrieval
practice in a classroom setting. Undergraduate students in a Brain and Behavior class were
given weekly online review activities that differed by week: some weeks students were
required to retrieve a target fact, other weeks they were asked to read the target fact, and
during still other weeks the online review was skipped altogether. The authors found that the
topics reviewed through retrieval practice were better remembered than either the topics
reviewed through reading or those that were not reviewed.
Retrieval doesn’t always improve retention
Although many studies have shown the benefits of retrieval in either the laboratory or
the classroom setting, recent studies suggest that retrieval practice is not always the most
effective learning strategy for all students. Carpenter, Lund, Coffman, Armstrong, Lamm and
Reason (2016) asked undergraduate students in an introductory biology course to complete
an in-class activity involving the topic of oogenesis. The students were assigned randomly to
either a copy condition, in which they copied the definition of five terms, or a recall
3
condition, in which they recalled the definition of the five terms. Both groups were tested a
week later on the five terms. In their analyses the authors divided each group into thirds on
the basis of their class performance at the time of testing. They found that students whose
overall class performance fell into the top third benefited more from the recall condition than
the copy condition. However, students who fell into the bottom third did better in the copy
condition than in the recall condition. Those who fell into the middle third performed equally
in both conditions. The results suggest that retrieval practice is not always optimal for
learning. In fact, certain types of students (e.g., low performing students) may actually fare
relatively worse from retrieval practice.
Karpicke, Blunt, Smith, and Karpicke (2014) gave elementary school children an
exercise covering science concepts on which the students initially only got 10% correct. They
found that students who received retrieval practice did as poorly on a later test as students
who received non-retrieval-based activities. As in the Carpenter et al. (2016) study, retrieval
practice was found to be suboptimal for learning when initial performance was low. Both
studies thus hint that retrieval practice might only benefit students who have prior knowledge
of the material. If students have stored relatively little material to retrieve, which is typical of
low-performing students, then retrieval practice may be no better than re-studying.
How to make retrieval more effective.
The research reviewed thus far suggest that a basal level of initial knowledge may be
essential for retrieval practice to be effective. How then can one enhance the initial learning
of material? One method for improving the initial encoding of material is through the use of
prequestions. Prequestions are questions deployed before students engage in a learning
episode. Research has shown that giving students questions on material they are about to
4
learn (i.e., prequestions) can improve future memory for that information (Hamaker, 1986;
Rickards, 1977). It is possible, therefore, that prequestions can increase students’ level of
knowledge of a given topic, and lead to more effective use of retrieval practice.
Benefits of prequestions
Asking prequestions improves learning
In a typical laboratory experiment on prequestions, participants are divided randomly
into a Prequestion Group, in which they receive prequestions to answer before reading a
prose passage, or a Control Group, in which they are given only the passage to study to
prepare for a later test. The usual findings are that the Prequestion Group performs
significantly better on a delayed final test than the Control Group (Bull & Dizney, 1973,
Boker, 1974; Little & Bjork, 2016; Peeck, 1970; Richland, Kornell, & Kao, 2009; Shanahan,
1986). Also, within the Prequestion Group, information that was prequestioned tends to be
remembered better than other information from the passage that was not prequestioned (Bull
& Dizney, 1973; Frase, 1968; Pressley et al., 1990; Richland et al., 2009; Rickards, 1976).
There is some suggestive evidence that prequestions might raise retention in lower-
performing students more so than in higher-performing students (Memory, 1981; Memory,
1983). For example, Memory (1983) used the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test to divide
participants into the lowest (low-ability readers) and highest (high-ability readers) quartiles.
Within each ability category, he assigned participants randomly to either a Prequestion
Group or a Control Group. The author found that although both low- and high-ability readers
in the Prequestion Group outperformed those in the Control Group on a final retention test,
for the low-ability readers the difference between groups was twice as large as for high-
5
ability readers, showing that prequestions are especially beneficial for low-performing
students.
Dowaliby (1990) explored the effects of prequestions and retrieval practice on learning in
low- and high-ability readers. Participants at each ability level were assigned to one of three
groups: Prequestion, Control, and Postquestion. The Postquestion Group functions as
retrieval practice because here participants were required to retrieve information after a
learning phase, but not before. Unlike Memory (1983), Dowaliby found that performance for
low-ability readers on a final multiple-choice test over the prose passage was better in the
Prequestion Group than in the Control Group, and this difference was similar for high-ability
readers. He also found that performance for high-ability readers was better in the
Postquestion Group than in the Control Group. Most importantly, however, Dowaliby found
that low-ability participants in the Postquestion Group performed no better than those in the
Control Group, whereas high-ability participants in the Postquestion Group did perform
better than those in the Control Group, similar to the results reported by Carpenter et al.
(2016).
Why do prequestions work?
As we have seen, prequestions can improve learning from reading passages. Furthermore,
prequestions tend to benefit memory for the prequestioned information more so than for the
non-prequestioned information. One idea to explain the memorial benefits of prequestions is
that prequestions focus attention to prequestioned material (Bull, 1973; Frase, 1968;
Hamaker, 1986; Hamilton, 1985; Shanahan, 1986). This idea predicts that participants
receiving prequestions will perform better on final test items that repeat those questions than
on items that test new material from the passage, because participants in the Prequestion
6
Group disproportionately focus attention on the prequestioned material when reading the
passage. In support of this hypothesis, again studies have found that students who received
prequestions performed significantly better on a delayed final test for prequestioned
information than for non-prequestioned information (Boker, 1974; Frase, Patrick, &
Schumer, 1970; Peeck, 1970; Sagaria & Di Vesta, 1978).
Do prequestions hurt learning of non-prequestioned information?
Several studies have compared learning of non-prequestioned material in the Prequestion
Group and Control Group. Sometimes, it has been found that prequestions actually disrupt
learning of non-prequestioned information (Boyd, 1973; Hamaker, 1986; Peeck, 1970;
Shavelson, Berliner, Ravitch, & Loeding, 1974; Shanahan, 1986). Sagaria and Di Vesta
(1978) showed this effect when they assessed memory for prequestioned and non-
prequestioned information on an immediate final test. Participants in the Prequestion Group
performed significantly better on prequestioned material than participants in the Control
Group. However, the former participants performed significantly worse on non-
prequestioned material than the latter participants, showing that exposure to prequestions had
a detrimental effect on learning non-prequestioned material. The idea proposed earlier—that
participants disproportionately focus attention on the prequestioned material, at the expense
of the non-prequestioned material—is consistent with this reasoning. The negative effect of
prequestions on non-prequestioned material could be due to learners in the Prequestion
Group narrowing their attention to prequestioned material and possibly ignoring non-
prequestioned material.
7
Prequestions with lecture material
The idea that learners can skip the non-prequestioned material to focus on
prequestioned material may pertain specifically to learning of prose passages where readers
are free to pace themselves through the reading. Here, learners can selectively decide which
portions to focus on, and if they are inclined, which portions to ignore or skip. For other
types of learning, such as students learning material in a lecture, prequestions may not have a
detrimental effect on non-prequestioned information because it is less easy to skip over
information. Here, the lecturer controls the pace of information presentation, which is not
available to students all at once. Thus, in the case of learning from lectures or even video-
recorded presentations, prequestions may not have a detrimental effect on learning of non-
prequestioned information as they have sometimes been shown to do with reading passages.
Carpenter and Toftness (2017) explored the effects of prequestions on learning from
video-recorded lectures in a controlled laboratory setting. In this experiment they gave
students prequestions (the Prequestion Group) or no prequestions (the Control Group) prior
to a video-recorded lecture on the history of Easter Island. Students in the Prequestion Group
answered two short answer questions (e.g., How many families originally settled on the
island of Rapa Nui?) prior to viewing each of three two-minute segments of the video,
whereas students in the Control Group simply viewed the video without answering
prequestions first. On a test immediately following the video, the Prequestion Group
performed higher than the Control Group. The Prequestion Group also performed higher on
questions that had previously appeared as prequestions (i.e., prequestioned information),
compared to questions over the video that had not appeared as prequestions (i.e., non-
prequestioned information). Interestingly, the Prequestion Group also performed higher than
8
the Control Group on the non-prequestioned information, suggesting that the presence of
prequestions facilitated learning of other, non-prequestioned information from the video.
This finding is opposite that of previous studies showing that the presence of prequestions
sometimes harms learning of non-prequestioned information in studies using reading
materials as stimuli (e.g., Boker, 1974; Frase, Patrick & Schumer, 1970; Peeck, 1970;
Sagaria & Di Vesta, 1978). The positive effect of prequestions on learning from video
presentations suggests that prequestions might have positive effects on learning from lecture
presentations.
In the only known classroom study to explore the effects of prequestions, McDaniel,
Agarwal, Huelser, McDermott, & Roediger (2011) explored middle school students’ learning
of science concepts by presenting multiple-choice in-class “clicker” questions at the
beginning and end of each lesson. Though students’ performance on the questions improved
from pre- to post-lesson in two experiments, at the end of the lesson the prequestioned
information was not remembered substantially better than non-prequestioned information
from the same lesson (76% vs. 77% in one experiment, and 84% vs. 79% in another
experiment).
McDaniel et al.’s (2011) study might suggest that prequestions are not beneficial for
classroom learning. However, an important aspect of their design is that all of the students
always received prequestions before each lesson. There was no control group that received
only questions at the end of the lessons without having received prequestions first. The lack
of difference in post-lesson performance between prequestioned and non-prequestioned
information could mean that the presence of prequestions boosts memory for both
prequestioned and non-prequestioned information relative to a situation in which no
9
prequestions were asked at all. Since there was no true control group, the effects of
prequestions on lecture learning is unknown.
Another important question to explore concerns the long-term effects of prequestions.
When a question is asked at the beginning and end of a learning event (i.e., prequestioned),
as opposed to only at the end (i.e., non-prequestioned), how well are these concepts retained
over time? Based on many studies of retrieval practice (Carpenter, 2012; Roediger & Butler,
2011; Rowland 2014), questions asked after some learning event would be expected to boost
memory relative to a situation where questions are not asked. However, does previewing the
question add to these benefits, such that the positive effects of retrieval are even stronger
when retrieval practice is preceded by a chance to view the questions that will later be asked?
In McDaniel et al.’s (2011) study, information that was questioned during class appeared on
later reviews just prior to exams. On these reviews, information that had been asked at the
beginning and end of class (i.e., prequestioned information) was remembered better than
information that was asked only at the end of class (i.e., non-prequestioned information).
However, again the study did not include a control group so it is unknown how these benefits
compare to information that was never questioned in the first place, and the degree to which
the placement of questions during class significantly boosts memory for the content being
learned.
The current study explored the effects of prequestions on lecture-based learning.
Advancing previous research on prequestions in the classroom, the study involved a
Prequestion Group that received prequestions prior to each lecture, and a Control Group that
learned the same content but did not receive prequestions prior to each lecture. The design
thus allows a comparison of information learned from class as a function of whether or not
10
students received prequestions, and a measurement of the educational utility of prequestions
as a learning tool.
11
CHAPTER 2: EXPERIMENT 1
Introduction
To address the influence of prequestions on classroom learning, retention of lecture
content in an introductory psychology course was assessed. Students in the class were
assigned randomly to a Prequestion Group, in which they were asked a lecture-specific
prequestion before each class meeting, or a Control Group, in which they attended the same
class without answering a prequestion first. At the end of each class, students in both groups
were asked two questions pertaining to that day’s lesson. For the Prequestion Group, one of
these questions was the same as the prequestion (Prequestion), and the other question was a
never-before-seen question from the same lesson (New Question). For the Control Group,
both questions had not been seen before (New Questions). One week later, students were
given a follow-up quiz in which they were asked these same two questions again, along with
a third question that was covered in class the week prior but that had not been seen before
(Quiz-Only Question).
This design allowed an exploration of the immediate effects of prequestions on lecture-
based learning, by comparing performance at the end of class on the Prequestion vs. the New
Question for both the Prequestion Group and the Control Group. It also allowed an
exploration of the long-term effects of prequestions, by comparing one-week delayed
memory for questions that appeared at both the beginning and end of class (Prequestions), vs.
only at the end of class (New Questions), and how memory for this information compares to
memory for information that was not tested at all (Quiz-Only Questions).
12
Hypothesis and predictions
Immediate effects of prequestions
Based on studies showing positive effects of prequestions (Carpenter & Toftness, 2017;
Little & Bjork, 2016; Peeck, 1970; Pressley et al., 1990; Richland et al., 2009; Shanahan,
1986), it was expected that students in the Prequestion Group would learn more overall from
the lecture than students in the Control Group. Also based on previous research, it was
expected that within the Prequestion Group, memory for prequestioned information would be
better than memory for non-prequestioned information (Bull, 1973; Frase, 1968; Hamaker,
1986; Hamilton, 1985).
Because class lectures do not allow selective processing of the material as much as
reading passages, the effects of prequestions on non-prequestioned information would not be
expected to be negative, as shown in previous studies (e.g., Boker, 1974; Frase, Patrick, &
Schumer, 1970; Peeck, 1970; Sagaria & Di Vesta, 1978). Instead, no decrement, or even a
possible advantage, for the non-prequestioned information in the Prequestion Group relative
to the Control Group was expected (e.g., see Carpenter & Toftness, 2017).
Long-Term effects of prequestions
Based on many studies of the benefits of retrieval practice (Carpenter, 2012; Roediger &
Butler, 2011; Rowland 2014), it was expected that content would be better remembered on
the follow-up quiz if it had been tested at the end of class the previous week, compared to if
it had not been tested. Thus, content from the Prequestions and New questions should be
better remembered than content from the Quiz-Only questions, and this should apply to both
the Prequestion Group and the Control Group.
Do prequestions boost the effects of retrieval practice?
13
McDaniel et al.’s (2011) study showed that material tested at the beginning and end of a
lesson was remembered better on a delayed test than material only tested at the end of a
lesson. Both types of materials were better remembered than non-quizzed materials. Taken
together these finding suggest students do better on materials they have prior exposure to (e.g
retrieval practice improves later performance) and that viewing questions as prequestions
boosts these effects. Again, McDaniel et al.’s experiment did not have a control group that
never received prequestions and so the effects of prequestions on delayed retention is still
worth investigating.
It was hypothesized that students in both the Prequestion Group and Control Group
would perform better on the delayed quiz for information that was tested at the end of class
(New Questions) compared to information that was not tested at all (Quiz-Only Questions).
Such a finding would be consistent with the well-known effects of retrieval practice
(Carpenter, 2012; Kornell & Vaughn, 2016; Rowland, 2014). If prequestions boost the
benefits of retrieval practice, then the retrieval practice effect (i.e., better learning for New
Questions relative to Quiz-Only Questions) might be expected to be larger in the Prequestion
Group than in the Control Group. Furthermore, within the Prequestion Group, the advantage
in memory for Prequestions over Quiz-Only Questions would be expected to be greater than
the advantage for New Questions over Quiz-Only Questions.
Method
Participants and course
The study was conducted in an introductory psychology laboratory course over two
semesters. The course was taught by four graduate-level instructors and organized into small
14
sections of approximately 20 students each. Each instructor taught two sections of the course
during one semester, and one section the following semester. Total enrollment across the 12
sections was 230 students.
Each section met once per week for 100 minutes and covered material pertaining to
topics such as research design, sensation and perception, memory, and personality. The
course content (including all PowerPoint slides, homework assignments, and projects) was
prepared in advance by the faculty course coordinator, and was identical across all of the
sections.
Materials and design
The study was designed to measure the effects of prequestions on both immediate and
delayed retention of course content. To explore immediate retention, one group of students
(the Prequestion Group) answered a question at the beginning of class pertaining to a concept
that they would learn about in that day’s class. The same question was repeated at the end of
class, along with another never-before-seen question from the same lesson. The other group
(the Control Group) did not answer any questions at the beginning of class, but instead
answered two questions at the end of class. This aspect of the design is similar to previous
studies exploring prequestions in laboratory-based research (Carpenter & Toftness, 2017). A
comparison of performance on the end-of-class questions between the Prequestion Group and
Control Group allowed a measure of the effects of prequestions on immediate retention of
prequestioned and non-prequestioned information.
To explore the delayed effects of prequestions, a review quiz was given at the
beginning of the next class period (one week later) containing the same two questions that
students answered at the end of class one week prior, in addition to one never-before-seen
15
question from the same lesson. For students in the Prequestion Group, one of the three
questions had been seen twice during class one week prior (once at the beginning of class,
and once at the end), and one question had been seen only once (at the end of class). For
students in the Control Group, two of the questions had both been seen at the end of class. A
comparison of performance between questions asked at the end of class one week prior vs.
questions not asked at all allowed a measure of the effects of retrieval practice on delayed
retention of course concepts. A comparison of performance between questions asked at the
beginning and end of class one week prior (i.e., prequestions) vs. only at the end, allowed an
exploration of whether the effects of retrieval practice are enhanced by giving students a
chance to preview the questions at the beginning of class.
This design required three questions to be constructed from each day’s lesson. The
questions required a short open-ended response, and were designed to cover independent
concepts such that knowing the answer to one question would not give away the answer to
another. All of the questions pertained to material that was presented directly in the
instructors’ PowerPoint presentations, oftentimes representing a term or definition (e.g.,
“What is procedural memory?”) that was introduced and discussed that day.
For students in the Prequestion Group, one of the three questions was designated as
the Prequestion, to be asked at the beginning and end of class (note that when this question
was asked at the end of class it was called the Postquestion). Another question was
designated as the New Question, which was asked only at the end of class. The last question
was designated as the Quiz Only Question, which was asked only on the review quiz one
week later. For students in the Control Group, two of the three questions from each class
meeting were designated as New Questions, to be asked only at the end of class, and the third
16
question was designated as the Quiz Only Question. Thus, all students received two
questions at the end of each class. The only difference was that the Prequestion Group saw
one of these questions at the beginning of class and the Control Group did not. For all
students, the same two questions from the end of class appeared, along with the Quiz Only
Question, on the review quiz one week later. Figure 1 provides a schematic of the design for
the first two weeks of the semester.
Figure 1. Class activities throughout the semester for the Prequestion Group and the Control
Group.
For students in the Prequestion Group, six counterbalancing conditions were created
so that each of the three questions from each lesson appeared equally often as the
Prequestion, the New Question, and the Quiz Only Question. For students in the Control
Group, three counterbalancing conditions were created so that each of the questions appeared
equally often as New Questions and Quiz Only Questions. Within each class section, each
17
student was randomly assigned to one of the nine counterbalancing conditions. This way, any
potential effects of the questions themselves were balanced across sections and instructors.
Procedure
Each class meeting involved answering questions at the beginning and end of class.
These activities were introduced to students as “Orientation Activities” and “Consolidation
Activities,” respectively (see Figure 1). Students received participation credit for completing
both activities, regardless of whether their answers to the questions were correct. For the first
class meeting, the Orientation Activity required students to answer some questions about
their interests in psychology, and for students in the Prequestion Group, to answer the
prequestion pertaining to that day’s topic. The Consolidation Activity at the end of class
required all students (both Prequestion and Control Groups) to answer two questions
pertaining to that day’s lesson.
For each subsequent class meeting after the first, the Orientation Activities involved
answering the three questions from the previous week’s class. After answering these three
questions, students in the Prequestion Group answered the prequestion pertaining to the
upcoming lesson. This process was then repeated across subsequent class periods—the three
questions from the previous week’s lesson appearing at the beginning of class, followed by
the prequestion over the upcoming lesson (for the Prequestion Group but not for the Control
Group), followed by the instructor’s lesson, followed by two questions at the end of class
over the lesson that was just covered.
Students completed the Orientation and Consolidation activities on laptop computers
that were provided. To complete the activities, students logged onto the online course
