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| INDEX OF RETENTION |
The purpose of education and training is for a person to acquire knowledge and skills about some topic(s) and to retain and use the knowledge and skills at a later time to perform some task and for more advanced learning. Thus, it is of primary importance that the person retain the knowledge until it is needed. Multiple choice tests used today do not address the question of "How long will the person remember the learned material?"
Research on SACAT shows that the retention of newly learned material is systematically related to "how sure" people are of the correctness of their answers when they learn it. Specifically, (see table) if people are "Not sure at all" of their correct answer, then a week later only 25% of the material is remembered. If they are "Extremely sure" of their correct answer, then 91% is retained*.
| The percentage of the correct answers on the final learning trial which were retained a week later - for different certainty levels | |
| Level of sureness on the final learning trial | Percentage retained correctly a week later |
| "Extremely sure" | 91% |
| "Very sure" | 88% |
| "Somewhat sure" | 75% |
| "Very unsure" | 75% |
| "Not sure at all" | 25% |
The SACAT provides a measure of how well the material will be retained - the more sure the person is of correct answers, then the better the material will be remembered. For learning and remembering critical knowledge, training instructors can add the requirement that trainees not only be correct, but also be "Extremely sure" of their answer.
Often the newly acquired knowledge is applied immediately as part of learning to perform some task or as a foundation for more advanced learning; and the repeated practice-with-confirmation serves to maintain the knowledge over time. However, if the knowledge is part of an infrequently or rarely performed task, such as what to do in some emergency situation, then the necessary knowledge, in effect, gradually weakens. The additional SACAT results involving "how sure" a person is provides helpful supplementary data for deciding when re-training is necessary.
*We are currentlty conducting more research to further confirm and elaborate these findings.