Do review sessions improve exam performance? Evidence from the UK

Out-of-term classroom time to review exam-related material is widespread. However, despite the investment in organizing and running the review sessions, their causal effect on exam performance remains unknown. Using individual-level data from a quasi-experiment, this paper identifies the effect of a review session on exam performance in a large undergraduate economics course in the United Kingdom. Contrary to pedagogical priors, the effect is insignificant. It is not driven by selection bias and remains insignificant in a series of robustness checks. The puzzling irrelevance of review sessions is discussed. A low-cost response might be to schedule review sessions closer to the exam.