# Presentation: 673584

## Temporal Spacing of Learning:

**Can It Help Reduce Forgetting?**

- Hal Pashler
- University of California, San Diego
- Dept of Psychology

## Douglas Rohrer, USF

- John Wixted, UCSD

- Nicholas Cepeda, UCSD & Univ of  Colorado

- Shana Carpenter, UCSD

## Michael Mozer, 

- Michael Mozer,
- Univ of Colorado Computer Science Dept.

- Ed Vul, MIT

## Forgetting: A Classic Topic in Experimental Psychology

**Forgetting: A Classic Topic in Experimental Psychology**

## Forgetting in K-12 Education

* **Educational failure may often reflect forgetting as well as*
*	**absence of initial mastery.*

* **Summer Vacation Set-backs*

* “**Regression” to partial understanding and *
*	**initial misunderstandings (Bob Siegler).*

## “People who went to college can tell you 

*“**People who went to college can tell you *
*what they learned in just 5 minutes. *
*So, at my college, students learn just the *
*same stuff – all in 5 minutes.”*

**Father Guido Sarducci’s **
**5-Minute College**

## Our Research Aim:

- Identify procedures that

-  can readily be applied in educational contexts.

-  reduce rate of forgetting

##  2. Temporal Distribution of Study Sessions

-  4. Form and Timing of Feedback

-  1. Temporal Distribution of Practice within Study Sessions

-  3. Overlearning

_**Topics**_

-  5. Testing Effects

## Analyzing Temporal Distribution of Study Sessions

- Time

- Study
- Something
- Once

- Study
- It
- Again

**Test**

**Inter-study Interval (ISI)**

**Retention Interval (RI)**

**Scarcely any application in classroom or instructional technology**

**Huge Literature showing poor learning with very short ISI (“spacing effect”)**

**Notes:**
When learning takes place at relatively distant points in time, learning is said to be spaced. [SPACED] In contrast, learning at relatively close time points is massed. [MASSED]

## Why no practical translation

-  if the literature is so huge?

- 425 papers

## Spacing Research with Significant Retention Intervals (> 1 day)

- 14 papers
- (Many with serious methodological problems)

## Slide 12

## 10-day Retention Interval Study

- Jani?

*Horse*

- Interstudy Interval = 0, 1, 2, 4, 7, 14 days

- _Tasks_
- Swahili-English Vocabulary

- Session 1: Study to Criterion
- 	[0,1,2,4,7, or 14 days]
- Session 2: Fixed amount of further study
- 	[10 day RI]
- Session 3: Test

## Facts

- Objects

**10-day RI**

- Data from 182 subjects tested for 3 sessions

## ?

*Coccolith.*

- Interstudy Interval = 0, 1, 7, 28, 84, or 168 days

- _Tasks_
- 1. Learn names of little-known objects

- 2. Learn little-known facts

- Who invented snow golf?

*Rudyard Kipling.*

## 6-month RI: Facts

**6-month RI: Facts**

- Swahili

- 10-day RI

**6-month RI: Object Names**

- Data from 161 subjects tested for 3 sessions

## Optimum ISI = 10 – 20% of retention interval?

***Optimum ISI = 10 – 20% of retention interval?***

- Let’s Plot Performance as a Function of ISI/RI _Ratio_

## Larger Experiment now in Progress

-  Web-based Learning of Facts

-  Session 1: Train to Criterion

-  Session 2: 2 Test/Study Repetitions

-  Test: Recall, then 5-Alternative Recognition

##  Recall Data (n ~ 2,000 subjects)

-  Recall Data (n ~ 2,000 subjects)

**7 days RI**

**35 days RI**

**70 days RI**

**350 days RI**

##  Recognition Data (n ~ 2,000 subjects)

-  Recognition Data (n ~ 2,000 subjects)

**7 days RI**

**35 days RI**

**70 days RI**

**350 days RI**

## Generalizing Beyond Fact & Vocabulary Learning

**Generalizing Beyond Fact & Vocabulary Learning**

-  Pattern-recognition skills may _not_ show similar 	spacing effects [www.learnmelanoma.org]

## Empirical Conclusions

-  Using ISI of about 10-20% of retention interval seem 	to optimize memory over a wide time range

-  Too short an ISI is much worse than too long

-  Using appropriate inter-study interval can produce 	100% - 200% improvement in ultimate 	memory

## Tentative Practical Implications

-  For most educational goals, 6-mo. delayed 	reviews likely to be very cost-effective 	(Preuss School Study)

-  Cumulative finals probably have huge effect on 	what students retain over years.

**Tentative Practical Implications**