Search for: All records

Spaced retrieval practice has been repeatedly demonstrated to improve learning, but its implementation is often constrained by real-world time limitations. This study investigated whether, under fixed study durations, learners should prioritize spacing or repetition. Across two experiments (total N = 1589), participants practiced Indonesian vocabulary under four conditions that varied in spacing and repetition. Item difficulty was also manipulated. Results showed that increasing repetitions at the cost of spacing enhanced immediate test performance, particularly for harder items. These findings suggest that spaced retrieval practice is effective only when learners have sufficient prior repetitions to retrieve information successfully. This study highlights the trade-offs between spacing and repetition under time constraints and offers practice insights for optimizing learning strategies. 

Pretesting—asking learners to try to answer questions about a topic before learning—results in better memory of that topic compared to simply studying the topic without taking a pretest. We investigated whether age and memory contentment moderate the benefit of pretesting, and whether judgments of pretesting effectiveness varied across adulthood (N = 273, age range: 18-82). The pretesting effect was not moderated by either factor. Metacognitive judgments, however, varied by age. Younger participants were more likely to appreciate the benefits of pretesting than middle-aged and older adults. In Study 2 (N = 296, age range: 18-83), our mixed-methods approach showed converging results: The older the participant, the less likely they were to appreciate the benefits of errors and think that pretesting would be effective for them. These results suggest that although the pretesting effect appears to be robust throughout adulthood, metacognitive beliefs differ. 

Learning objectives (LOs) are designed to orient learners to the importance of an upcoming lesson. Despite their intuitive value, research shows that instructors and students often perceive them as useless (or worse). Yet, LOs contain important information to guide students’ attention and self-regulated study. In two experiments, we investigate whether making simple modifications that encourage learners to more actively process the LOs (i.e., turning them into prequestions or metacognitive judgments versus control) can improve engagement and learning from a subsequent text passage. Modifying LOs increased subsequent test performance, though effects were largest for earlier content than for later content. These results suggest a potential way to use LOs to augment student learning. 

The pretesting effect is a robust learning strategy whereby attempting to answer questions about a topic before learning it results in better memory of that topic compared to simply studying the topic without taking a pretest. We investigated whether age and memory contentment, factors underexplored in the literature, moderate the pretesting effect, and whether judgments of pretesting effectiveness varied across ages. We found that the pretesting effect was not moderated by either factor, but participants 18-39 yrs reported pretesting to be better for learning whereas 40-50 year-old participants reported studying to be better for learning. These results suggest that the pretesting effect appears to be robust throughout adulthood, but the metacognitive benefits of its effectiveness differ by age. 

Cognitive science of learning points to solutions for making use of existing study and instruction time more effectively and efficiently. However, solutions are not and cannot be one-size-fits-all. This paper outlines the danger of overreliance on specific strategies as one-size-fits-all recommendations and highlights instead the cognitive learning processes that facilitate meaningful and long-lasting learning. Three of the most commonly recommended strategies from cognitive science provide a starting point; understanding the underlying processes allows us to tailor these recommendations to implement at the right time, in the right way, for the right content, and for the right students. Recommendations regard teacher training, the funding and incentivizing of educational interventions, guidelines for the development of educational technologies, and policies that focus on using existing instructional time more wisely.