Faria Sana

Spaced retrieval enhances retention but is often time-intensive, limiting its practical use in educational settings. When study time is constrained, should learners prioritize fewer, widely spaced repetitions or more repetitions with shorter intervals? We tested spacing, repetition, and boundary-condition accounts by manipulating item difficulty and practice schedules across three experiments (N = 1,944). Participants learned Indonesian vocabulary under four conditions that traded off repetition frequency and spacing interval. Results showed that increasing repetitions with shorter spacing improved immediate performance and delayed retention, particularly for difficult items, whereas easy items reached an asymptote after a moderate number of repetitions. These findings support a boundary-condition account, indicating that the effectiveness of spacing and repetition depends on item difficulty and sufficient successful retrievals. Together, repetition, spacing, and item difficulty jointly regulate retrieval success. The results refine retrieval-based learning theory and offer guidance for efficient study under time constraints.

There is enormous variability in how people produce speech and writing. Even when describing the same idea, some might say “Sharon has velvety skin,” while others say “Sharon’s skin is velvet.” Why...

Do undergraduate students know and use distributed practice, the strategy of spacing apart learning opportunities over time, and interleaved practice, the strategy of alternating between topics during learning? What beliefs do students hold about how learning should be scheduled, and how are common learning activities—such as using flashcards and completing problem sets—actually scheduled? To explore these questions, we surveyed students at two major universities in North America and Southeast Asia respectively. We found that distributed practice is unfamiliar to many students, whereas interleaved practice is virtually unknown. Both strategies are often underutilized and perceived with mixed effectiveness. Instructors, meanwhile, reportedly use various scheduling approaches in lectures and assignments. Additionally, distributed practice was associated with better academic performance. These findings, which showed relative consistency across culturally diverse samples, underscore significant gaps in student awareness and adoption of distributed and interleaved practice, highlighting the need to improve their integration into educational settings.

Existing accounts of testing effects assume a dedicated study trial is necessary. Students must encode material before practice can strengthen memory. We tested this assumption by removing the study trial entirely. Across two experiments using prequestions and postquestions formats, in addition to clear effects of adding practice to a passage, a Practice with Feedback Only condition, in which participants answered questions about never studied material and received feedback, matched the accuracy of full instruction conditions that included a study passage. The study trial added time but not learning. These findings challenge the foundational assumption that a study trial is a necessary precondition for practice-based learning. We propose that the functional unit of learning is the generation of a response and its precise resolution through targeted feedback, not retrieval from a prior study event.

Working memory (WM) is a cognitive system with limited capacity that enables individuals to focus on goal-relevant information while filtering distractions and integrating new knowledge. Differences in WM capacity influence how students engage with instructional materials, shaping the effectiveness of educational interventions. This raises the following question: which instructional methods work best, for whom, and under what conditions? The aptitude–treatment interaction (ATI) framework addresses this by examining how learning outcomes are influenced by the alignment between cognitive abilities, such as WM, and instructional strategies. This paper reviews WM’s role in learning and academic achievement, explores ATI’s relevance in contemporary education research, and highlights how this framework can guide the development of adaptive instructional strategies that support diverse learners.

Do undergraduate students know and use distributed practice, the strategy of spacing apart learning opportunities over time, and interleaved practice, the strategy of alternating between topics during learning? What beliefs do students hold about how learning should be scheduled, and how are common learning activities—such as using flashcards and completing problem sets—actually scheduled? To explore these questions, we surveyed students at two major universities in North America and Southeast Asia, respectively. We found that distributed practice is unfamiliar to many students, whereas interleaved practice is virtually unknown. Both strategies are often underutilized and perceived with mixed effectiveness. Instructors, meanwhile, reportedly use various scheduling approaches in lectures and assignments. Additionally, distributed practice was associated with better academic performance. These findings, which showed relative consistency across culturally diverse samples, underscore significant gaps in student awareness and adoption of distributed and interleaved practice, highlighting the need to improve their integration into educational settings.

A large body of existing research indicates that practice after an initial reading improves learning outcomes and is more beneficial than rereading. But can practice with feedback be effective even without upfront reading? Across three laboratory studies (n = 1,554), participants learned the same amount from practice with feedback regardless of whether they did the introductory reading or not, and they saved 60% of time when skipping the reading. These results suggest that if students have the opportunity to practice and receive feedback on their performance, additional passive instruction like textbook reading may be redundant and inefficient. Students might be better off focusing on practice and feedback for robust and efficient learning.