Too Depleted to Learn? An Exploration of Cognitive Load and the Testing Effect

The testing effect occurs when learners, after receiving information to learn and practicing through an assessment, show superior performance in subsequent tests compared to simply reviewing the information. This effect tends to be less pronounced or even reversed when immediate tests are employed instead of delayed tests. The objective of this study was to examine the occurrence of this effect by varying the complexity within the same specific knowledge domain. Consequently, a quantitative investigation was developed with a sample of 310 students from an elementary school in the city of Santa Isabel, Ecuador. The sample included 171 females and 139 males, with an average age between 9 and 12 years, and a factorial design was implemented with the variables of task sequence (example-example vs. example-problem), element interactivity (i.e., high vs. low), and test timing (i.e., immediate vs. delayed). The results indicated that performance in both immediate and delayed tests is superior in tasks with a low level of element interactivity compared to tasks with high element interactivity. It was also found that example-problem tasks are better than example-example tasks in the delayed test. It is concluded that the relationship between element interactivity and the testing effect is not entirely clear, and it is suggested that the design of learning tasks should impose cognitive load within the limits of working memory.