Subset Testing: Prevalence and Implications for Study Behaviors

In 3 studies, the authors examined the prevalence and effects of a testing strategy whereby they gave a set of items to participants in advance and subsequently tested them on a portion of those items (i.e., subset testing). In a survey of university instructors, Study 1 showed that subset testing is a commonly used testing strategy. In this study, a majority of undergraduate students indicated that they had been exposed to subset testing in previous university classes. In Study 3, undergraduate participants studied 15 definitions and reported judgments of learning (JOLs). The authors randomly assigned participants to 1 of 3 conditions in which they were told that they would be tested on 5, 10, or 15 items and then given the opportunity to restudy. Students restudied definitions with low JOLs regardless of their testing expectation.