Does Collaborative Testing in the Classroom Enhance Delayed Transfer of Knowledge?

Collaborative testing is an increasingly popular pedagogical tool whereby students complete tests in small groups. Prior studies show that student and instructor perceptions are mostly positive, yet posttests seldom reveal that students who were tested collaboratively learned more than students tested individually. Here we hypothesized that prior studies may have failed to detect a learning benefit of collaborative testing over individual testing because their posttests did not effectively tap transfer of knowledge. To address this hypothesis, two classroom studies were conducted in which we directly compared the effects of collaborative and individual testing on delayed transfer of knowledge. Students were first tested on concepts either collaboratively or individually. After a delay of at least a few days, they then individually completed a posttest designed to measure transfer of the same concepts. The results were similar across both studies: student perceptions of collaborative testing were mostly positive, yet contrary to our hypothesis, we found no evidence of collaborative testing enhancing posttest transfer relative to individual testing. We discuss the implications of these findings for educational practice. We also discuss another popular variant of collaborative testing that may yield more promising results.