Avoidance of Overlearning Characterizes the Spacing Effect

The spacing of a fixed amount of study time across multiple sessions usually increases subsequent test performance—a finding known as the spacing effect. In the spacing experiment reported here, subjects completed multiple learning trials, and each included a study phase and a test. Once a subject achieved a perfect test, the remaining learning trials within that session comprised what is known as overlearning. The number of these overlearning trials was reduced when learning trials were spaced across multiple sessions rather than massed in a single session. In addition, the degree to which spacing reduced overlearning predicted the size of the spacing effect, which is consistent with the possibility that spacing increases subsequent recall by reducing the occurrence of overlearning. By this account, overlearning is an inefficient use of study time, and the efficacy of spacing depends at least partly on the degree to which it reduces the occurrence of overlearning

The Effects of Spacing and Mixing Practice Problems

Sets of mathematics problems are generally arranged in 1 of 2 ways. With blocked practice, all problems are drawn from the preceding lesson. With mixed review, students encounter a mixture of problems drawn from different lessons. Mixed review has 2 features that distinguish it from blocked practice: Practice problems on the same topic are distributed, or spaced, across many practice sets; and problems on different topics are intermixed within each practice set. A review of the relevant experimental data finds that each feature typically boosts subsequent performance, often by large amounts, although for different reasons. Spacing provides review that improves long-term retention, and mixing improves students\u27 ability to pair a problem with the appropriate concept or procedure. Hence, although mixed review is more demanding than blocked practice, because students cannot assume that every problem is based on the immediately preceding lesson, the apparent benefits of mixed review suggest that this easily adopted strategy is underused

The Breadth of Memory Search

The recall of previously studied items is widely believed to incorporate a search of a markedly constrained set of possibilities, and the present study examines whether this set of items typically includes unstudied semantic associates of the study items. In an episodic task, participants recalled a previously studied list of eight exemplars drawn from a small or large category, and, in a semantic task, participants generated exemplars from these categories. Category size affected the time course of recall in the semantic task but not in the episodic task. This empirical dissociation between episodic and semantic memory is consistent with the view that episodic memory search efficiently excludes unstudied semantic associates of the study items and is instead constrained to those items sharing the temporal and spatial attributes of the episode

The Effects of Spacing and Mixing Practice Problems

Sets of mathematics problems are generally arranged in 1 of 2 ways. With blocked practice, all problems are drawn from the preceding lesson. With mixed review, students encounter a mixture of problems drawn from different lessons. Mixed review has 2 features that distinguish it from blocked practice: Practice problems on the same topic are distributed, or spaced, across many practice sets; and problems on different topics are intermixed within each practice set. A review of the relevant experimental data finds that each feature typically boosts subsequent performance, often by large amounts, although for different reasons. Spacing provides review that improves long-term retention, and mixing improves students\u27 ability to pair a problem with the appropriate concept or procedure. Hence, although mixed review is more demanding than blocked practice, because students cannot assume that every problem is based on the immediately preceding lesson, the apparent benefits of mixed review suggest that this easily adopted strategy is underused

An Efficacy Study of Interleaved Mathematics Practice ('18-'19)

A multi-classroom randomized control study of mathematics learning that compares interleaved practice and blocked practic

Recent Research on Human Learning Challenges Conventional Instructional Strategies

There has been a recent upsurge of interest in exploring how choices of methods and timing of instruction affect the rate and persistence of learning. The authors review three lines of experimentation—all conducted using educationally relevant materials and time intervals—that call into question important aspects of common instructional practices. First, research reveals that testing, although typically used merely as an assessment device, directly potentiates learning and does so more effectively than other modes of study. Second, recent analysis of the temporal dynamics of learning show that learning is most durable when study time is distributed over much greater periods of time than is customary in educational settings. Third, the interleaving of different types of practice problems (which is quite rare in math and science texts) markedly improves learning. The authors conclude by discussing the frequently observed dissociation between people’s perceptions of which learning procedures are most effective and which procedures actually promote durable learning