Can Students with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Benefit from Testing as a Means of Learning?

Practicing materials by retrieving them from one's own memory (testing, or retrieval practice) has been repeatedly demonstrated as being more effective for long-term retention and transfer than merely rereading these materials. This effect of retrieval practice has been demonstrated in typically developed learners but only rarely examined in students with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). One study suggested that, unlike typically developed students, students with ADHD do not benefit from retrieval practice when using a relatively difficult retrieval task – free recall of prose texts (Dudukovic, Gottshall, Cavanaugh & Moody, 2015). In the current study we examined whether students with ADHD can nevertheless benefit from retrieval practice when the level of initial retrieval difficulty is reduced. Thirty-six students with ADHD and 36 typically developed students each read three passages. One text was practiced via testing with short answer questions, a second text was practiced via testing with multiple choice questions, and the third text was practiced by rereading. A week later, the students completed a criterion test composed of short answer questions. For both typically developed and ADHD students, criterion test performance was better following retrieval practice than following rereading. Retrieval practice using multiple choice questions led to better criterion test performance than retrieval practice using short answer questions. These findings indicate that students with ADHD can benefit from retrieval practice when it is adjusted to their cognitive abilities.