Learning assessments as learning modifiers

A fundamental problem in various domains of science is that the measurement of a phenomenon may alter that phenomenon. In education, assessments of learning are inherent to both educational research and educational practice. It is therefore important to understand whether and how learning assessments alter learning. In this talk, I will focus on reactivity of learning assessments, and discuss its peril and promise for education. Two related lines of research will be presented. First, I will talk about reactivity of objective assessments of learning that involve retrieval of studies information from memory (aka the testing effect). This topic has been extensively studied and I will briefly review the main findings and present some novel ones. Then, I will move on to talk about a more novel example of reactivity in the context of learning - reactivity of subjective assessments of learning (metacognitive monitoring). I will present evidence from a series of studies, and discuss the theoretical, methodological and practical implications for education.