Do not adjust your set: the benefits and challenges of test‐enhanced learning

From a learner’s perspective, the old axiom that assessment drives learning is as true today as it ever was. Yet how many of us routinely think of assessment as a learning tool rather than as a means of measuring student attainment? Even if we do think of assessment in terms of its educational impact, do we ever consider the relationship between assessment and learning as being proportional? Does more testing lead to more (better) learning? Larsen et al. argue convincingly in this issue for a strategy of more frequent testing to improve students’ retention of factual information. Despite the obvious challenge that such a proposal might pose in terms of selling it to both students and teachers (who would have to design and mark the assessments), the idea of using a frequent testing regime to stimulate better learning is intriguing and worthy of consideration.