Enhancing Electrical Science Learning Within A Novel Practice Testing Learning Framework

This paper presents a novel practice testing learning framework to enhance learning in electrical science. Several learning techniques are used by students to maximise their learning. Research has shown that most of those learning techniques are not effective. Retrieval practice also referred to as the 'testing effect', promotes practice testing as it is an effective technique. Accordingly, the testing effect phenomena and its potential application to electrical science education may be particularly crucial to student learning. However, research into practice testing has been limited to date in classroom contexts, and it is necessary to broaden the inquiry to enable instructors to implement practice testing as part of their teaching and learning strategy. This research seeks to address this gap by a study of n=161 apprentices on the National Electrical Apprenticeship programme in the Republic of Ireland, across multiple training centres, and how they benefited from e-assessment practice tests to enhance learning. For this purpose, a novel practice testing learning framework is applied supporting learning, item development, classification and mapping to learning outcomes. A One-Way ANOVA with the dependent variable the performance in the randomised unseen criterion test, with student test attempts as the factor found a significant improvement in performance between groups. A significant increase in performance was also evident for participants in the practice test topic not meeting the passing grade of the overall criterion test between groups with a mean performance of 72.35% following three or four practice tests compared to 52.94% with no practice tests in the practice test topic area. This finding suggests that participation in three or four practice tests enhances learning and improves self-regulation. The insights from this study will serve as guidelines for future educational research on practice testing towards enhancing learning in electrical science and other domains.