The Impact of Testing Frequency on Student Performance in a Marketing Course

Testing frequency has long been examined in the social sciences as an antecedent to student performance in the classroom. However, after nearly 70 years of study, the results are inconclusive. Given the developments in computerized testing over the last decade, professors now have the ability to create and conduct frequent tests without severely impinging on other duties. In this article, the authors reexamine the issue in a marketing context, and the findings suggest that, under certain conditions, students tend to perform better with more frequent testing. In addition, more frequent testing tends to increase student evaluations of faculty. The authors also discuss reasons for and limitations of these findings.