Examining Nursing Students' Retention of Taught Content by Repeat Study and Repeat Testing: A Replicated Study

This project was a replication of a previous study conducted with medical residents to determine if repeat testing produced higher scores as compared to repeat study. Current literature reports that repeated testing produces higher scores than repeated studying. This project was conducted with first semester nursing students who were provided a learning session on two topics, followed by a multiple-choice test and review sheet for each topic. Two groups were randomly assigned. Each group tested on either Topic A or Topic B (Asepsis and Oxygenation) and studied the other topic. Testing sessions were held on the teaching day, at two weeks and at three months following the initial teaching session. Final tests compared using t-tests show the mean scores are 21% higher (p = 0.00) for the students who tested as compared to the students who studied the topics.