Temporal Spacing and Learning: The Potential of Spaced Practice to Reduce Forgetting
The Winter 2011 Term is well underway at our University now and many of us return after, what is always at best, a well deserved break ending too soon; summer of course. Returning to our classes in various disciplines even just in the Faculty of Science we always seem to develop a sense of doom when the expectation of having to recall previous year’s material is stressed upon in almost every introductory lecture of our courses. Not the most comforting feeling when starting a new year but there it lies filling us with dread.
The problem lies in not our being forgetful but rather in the methods which we adopt in order to retain and commit to our memories the different pieces of information which we work so hard throughout our academic careers to engrave into our minds. Reading articles I came across an interesting one suggesting a potential answer to this problem.
Temporal Spacing
Numerous studies going centuries back have asserted that spacing learning episodes across time sometimes enhances memory. This so-called spacing effect can aid learning and effective retention of information. However, whether in classrooms, instructional design texts, or language learning software, there is little sign that people are paying attention to temporal spacing of learning.
Optimal Spacing Intervals
In a recent study, the researchers gave 161 subjects two learning sessions (separated by an inter-study interval, or ISI, from minutes to 3 months). Each session involved learning a set of obscure facts. Six months after the second session, subjects were brought back for a final test. Performance was best when the ISI was 10 to 20 percent of the retention interval (Cepeda et al., 2006). Furthermore, similar results were found when the same subjects learned names of unusual objects depicted in photographs.
In a study currently under way using the Web, more than 2,000 subjects are being trained at inter-study intervals from minutes out to one year, with a final test taking place after an additional year. While still underway, results accumulated so far suggest similar results as above. Furthermore, the benefits of spacing seem to grow ever larger as retention intervals are lengthened; thus, for one-year retention, a one-month spacing produces a three-fold or greater increase in memory as compared to a day or even a week of spacing. While increasing spacing too much always produces some decline, as earlier short-duration studies had implied, the decline is invariably quite modest. Therefore, to facilitate retention over years, it seems critical to space training over several months at least, but avoiding overly long spacing seems like a relatively minor concern.
Mathematics Learning
To move beyond these somewhat “rote” learning tasks, another study focused on teaching students abstract mathematics skills (Rohrer & Taylor, 2006). Students learned to solve a type of permutation problem, and then worked two sets of practice problems. One-week spacing separating the practice sets drastically improved final test performance (which involved problems not previously encountered). In fact, when the two practice sets were back-to-back, final performance was scarcely better than if the second study session was deleted altogether.
While there is still much to be learnt as far as temporal spacing and learning are concerned, the results I found and shared above do reflect the potential of spaced practice to reduce forgetting as enormous. Perhaps finding the right spacing varies from student to student but being aware of such techniques and fine tuning these to optimize our learning is more of an individual task rather than a collective one!
References
- Cepeda, N. J., Mozer, M. C., Coburn, N., Rohrer, D., Wixted, J. T., & Pashler, H. (2006). Optimizing distributed practice: Theoretical analysis and practical implications. Manuscript submitted for publication.
- Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (in press). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin.
- Rohrer, D., & Taylor, K. (2006). The effects of overlearning and distributed practice on the retention of mathematics knowledge. Manuscript submitted for publication.
- Rohrer, D., Taylor, K., Pashler, H., Cepeda, N. J., & Wixted, J. T. (2005). The effect of overlearning on long-term retention. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19, 361-374.
September 28th, 2011 at 2:38 pm
I met Hal Paschler last summer at a conference about integrating cognitive psychology into higher education. It’s neat to see you citing his work.
It frustrates me that we know so much about learning but very little is taken up by instructors and students. Although spacing out studying is easier said than done, I think it would really help students in the long run. If students forget less they will do better in future classes that use that material (ahem, chemistry is a good example of this!).
September 30th, 2011 at 12:19 am
I can somewhat testify to the results of this study. I have experienced both ways, as they tested in mathematics learning. I seemed to recall more of the material I studied when I did so in spaced intervals. I wish I knew about the implications earlier! I agree with you that each student needs to discover their optimal spacing.
Even though it can be difficult to space out studying, I think I’m going to do my best putting it into practice this year. Maybe I can provide my findings as support to this research!
October 1st, 2011 at 9:25 am
I agree that spacing varies from student to student. I’ve tried adopting someone else’s study regime in the past and found that it was very difficult because just as everyone studies differently, everyone also learns differently. We should remember to use our strengths to work smart: it’s not only the quantity of studying you do that matters, but it’s about the quality as well! This blog post was great because it gives students the tools to maximize their learning/studying efficiency.