Knowledge Taught in School: What Is Remembered?

Abstract

Popular belief holds that much of what is taught in classrooms is forgotten shortly thereafter. However, there is evidence from numerous studies that long-term retention for knowledge taught in school is substantial. These studies are reviewed, and several variables that affect the ability to remember are discussed. The article concludes that (a) students retain much of the knowledge taught in the classroom; (b) retention decreases over time as a function of the length of the retention interval but the forgetting curves for knowledge taught in school do not decline as rapidly or asymptote as low as the curves observed in traditional laboratory studies; (c) increasing the level of original learning differentially affects retention performance; (d) both instructional content and assessment tasks affect learning and retention, with one of the most consistent effects being that recognition tasks are retained at higher levels than recall tasks; (e) most instructional strategies that promote higher levels of original learning do not result in differentially better retention (however, several exceptions are discussed); and (f) while higher ability students learn and remember more than lower ability students, there is no evidence for differential forgetting. Implications for research and teaching are discussed.

Memory awareness and schematization: learning in the university context

“…This is consistent with recent research involved in the long-term retention of knowledge taught in school (e.g. Conway et al, 1991Conway et al, , 1992Semb and Ellis, 1994). From their review of several studies examining longterm retention (e.g.…”

“…From their review of several studies examining longterm retention (e.g. Bahrick, 1984;Bahrick and Hall, 1991;Semb et al, 1993), Semb and Ellis (1994) suggested that it is not a simple strengthening of the instructional content which improves long-term retention, but rather qualitative changes in students' memory structures, or schemas, through active learning. Furthermore, Conway et al (1992) suggested that in the context of school or university, when schemas are formed and retained, the organization of knowledge in memory is generally stable and effective access to the knowledge is maintained.…”

Long-term retention of basic science knowledge: a review study

“…In general, our review suggests that the figures in an old but popular monograph-50% retention after one year and 25% after two years if knowledge is not used in the meantime-are a bit on the pessimistic side (Tyler 1949, p. 73). However, compared with the conclusion in Semb and Ellis (1994) review-84% retention if measured by recognition and 72% if measured by recall across all RIs-our estimation tends to be a bit more conservative.…”

“…Usually, advantage is taken of the fact that the participants remain enrolled in school during the retention interval, which makes them easily available for follow-up testing. Classroom learning differs from learning in the laboratory in that it takes place over several months (rather than in a single session or a few sessions), information is typically presented in a variety of ways, and the instructional content is more meaningful, varied, detailed, and complex; in other words, the context provides for multiple and distributed opportunities for learning and a more coherent organized content (Semb and Ellis 1994;Semb et al 1993). …”

“…Subsequently, the knowledge gain is calculated, expressed as percentage increase in scores between pretest and posttest. Finally, after the RI, a retention test is administered to both the control group and the experimental group, to determine knowledge loss i.e., the proportion of the knowledge gain that is lost at the retention test (Frutchey 1937;Semb and Ellis 1994).…”