3.1.3. Scoring
Each recall response was assigned a score based on the percentage of idea units from the definition that the response contained (the idea units were the same as those presented to participants for monitoring judgments during practice). Responses were counted as correct if they included either verbatim restatements or paraphrases that preserved the meaning of the idea unit.
3.2. Results and discussion
The primary analyses involve data from the SRL group that answer the three focal questions raised in the Introduction. Intermingled with these primary analyses, we also describe outcomes from the two criterion groups that address our secondary goal pertaining to how effectively students in the SRL group regulated their study.
3.2.1. Do students test themselves when learning key concept definitions?
The mean number of trials during the practice phase (i.e., after initial study) that students chose to test themselves is presented in the left panel of Fig. 2. The SRL group did engage in a non-trivial amount of testing (on average, close to two test trials per concept) – t(33) = 7.36, comparing the value to 0.