Compared with other learning strategies, retrieval practice seems to promote superior long-term retention. This has been found mostly in conditions where learners take tests after being exposed to learning content. However, a pre-testing effect has also been demonstrated, with promising results. This raises the question, for a given amount of time dedicated to retrieval practice, whether learners should be tested before or after an initial exposure to learning content. Our experiment directly compares the benefits of post-testing and pre-testing relative to an extended reading condition, on a retention test 7 days later. We replicated both post-testing (d = 0.74) and pre-testing effects (d = 0.35), with significantly better retention in the former condition. Post-testing also promoted knowledge transfer to previously untested questions, whereas pre-testing did not. Our results thus suggest that it may be more fruitful to test students after than before exposure to learning content.

International audienceWe investigate the link between how male-dominated a field is, and gender bias against women in this field. Taking the entrance exam of a French higher education institution as a natural experiment, we find that evaluation is actually biased in favor of females in more male-dominated subjects (e.g., math, philosophy) and in favor of males in more female-dominated subjects (e.g., literature, biology), inducing a rebalancing of gender ratios between students recruited for research careers in science and humanities majors. Evaluation bias is identified from systematic variations across subjects in the gap between students' nonanonymous oral and anonymous written test scores

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