The internet loves quizzes, they are literally everywhere. You can find any type of quiz, from random trivia to personality quizzes, and most importantly, quizzes that tell you which Disney princess you are. Quizzes are an excellent tool for businesses to generate leads and increase brand awareness but they are also great for education and training.
The testing effect
The testing effect, also known as the retrieval practice, is a strategy in which retrieving information enhances and boosts learning. In other words, deliberately recalling information forces us to remember things in the long term.
According to memory researchers (yes, this is a thing), practicing information retrieval is more effective that repeated exposure to the same information. For example, recalling an answer to a math question significantly improves learning than looking up the answer over and over again.
You’ve probably experienced this yourself. You’re hanging out with friends and family and someone starts talking about a topic you recently read about but you can’t jump into the conversation, why? You don’t really remember what you read. However, if it’s a topic that constantly keeps coming up in different social gatherings, after a couple of times of Googling it, you will find yourself remembering the specifics.
In conclusion, we need more tests.
Redefine testing
You’re probably ready to close this article, but please hang on with us for a second. The word test brings up a bunch of negative connotations and memories, such as failure, no sleep, and stress. But a lot of this is connected to the fact that traditionally tests are used as a performance evaluation tool. Don’t misunderstand, testing performance is vital for many things such as driver’s licenses and, you know, pilots!
However, tests can and should also be used as learning tools. The testing effect research strongly suggests that removing the grading system is essential to learning and long-term memory. Quizzes that are not graded, relieve the pressure, and instead they act as a memory retrieval tool, preparing students for graded tests.
Try it out yourself!
We created an international Christmas quiz in December and it was harder than we thought.
But this gives us the perfect opportunity to test the testing effect. Try the quiz a couple of times and see how you start retaining information!
→ Take the International Christmas quiz
Quiz with Enalyzer
With Enalyzer, you can easily setup quizzes. Our score is the perfect feature for making quizzes. You can calculate scores for answers. Each response alternative to a question can be given different values, and calculations can be made on those values. Additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions can be made the entire quiz.
Enalyzer also has powerful design tools so you can easily create good looking, high-end quizzes without any design background or skills – all you need is your imagination.