Retrieval Practice as a Learning Strategy for Diverse Populations

Students often adopt learning strategies that are suboptimal for memory retention, as reading multiple times the to-be-learned materials, for example. A more effective approach consists in trying to remember the materials after studying them, a strategy known as “retrieval practice.” Retrieval practice can be administered through various types of quizzes, tests, and exercises, and has shown to be beneficial for learning in laboratory contexts as well as in real classroom environments. Importantly, however, most studies demonstrating the benefits of retrieval practice involved college students from WEIRD populations. Thus, our goal here was to review studies on retrieval practice that focused on diverse populations (e.g., non-WEIRD students, elementary school children, students with special educational needs). Although the number of studies on retrieval practice involving these populations remains considerably low, their results are in general positive, and therefore favorable to the adoption of this strategy to benefit learning in these populations.