The Good is in the Testing, Not the Results

Scaffolded tests and reviews are an integral part of ProblemScape and one might wonder why tests need to be included in an adventure game for math. Testing in education has had its share of bad press, and a number of articles even from reputable sources blur the line that separates good testing from bad, resulting in a widely held belief that testing by itself is bad. Even though high-stakes testing and the practice of teaching to the test have been shown to be detrimental to long-term educational goals, research in cognitive science shows that testing actually plays a much bigger role in the process of learning itself. 

Multiple studies show that testing has a powerful positive effect on future retention (called the ‘Testing Effect’). Testing ensures that the information encoded during the initial study is retrieved from long-term memory. This retrieval is beneficial for learning because it reactivates the information stored in memory and reinforces the connection to it! The integrated spaced reviews after every chapter in ProblemScape ensure that the students strengthen associations in memory for all concepts they have been learning. The scaffolding that we are adding to the problems is to ensure that each student is given the support that they need until they reach mastery.