{"id":3497,"date":"2018-06-15T08:00:57","date_gmt":"2018-06-15T13:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=3497"},"modified":"2025-02-26T06:58:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T11:58:51","slug":"putting-research-to-work-in-the-classroom-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/putting-research-to-work-in-the-classroom-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting Research to Work in the Classroom: Success?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unless you’ve been napping under a LatB rock, you’ve heard about the importance of research-based study habits.<\/p>\n

\"study<\/a><\/p>\n

In particular, you know that students should\u00a0spread practice out over time<\/em> rather than\u00a0bunching practice all together<\/em>. (The benefits are called the spacing effect<\/strong>.)<\/p>\n

And, you know that students should not simply\u00a0look over what they already know<\/em>. Instead, they should\u00a0quiz themselves to see what they can actively retrieve from memory.\u00a0<\/em>(That’s called\u00a0retrieval practice.<\/em><\/strong>)<\/p>\n

Here’s a little secret you might not know: most of the research about the spacing effect and retrieval practice takes place in psychology labs.<\/p>\n

What happens in the real world? Do students who use these techniques actually learn more than those who don’t?<\/p>\n

Asking Students about their Study Habits<\/h2>\n

In a recent study, Fernando Rodriguez and colleagues surveyed students about their study practices<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Do these students space practice over time? Do they do all of their studying all in one session?<\/p>\n

Perhaps they quiz themselves on what they know? Or, perhaps they reread the textbook?<\/p>\n

Rodriguez & Co. then compared these answers to the students’ grade in the class. By this method, they could tease out the effects of spacing and retrieval practice on actual learning.<\/p>\n

So: did these research-endorsed study habits translate into classroom learning?<\/p>\n

No. And, Yes.<\/h2>\n

Rodriguez found mixed results.<\/p>\n

Study habits that spaced practice out didn’t make any difference<\/em>. Students who crammed and students who studied material in several brief sessions got the same final grade.<\/p>\n

(I’ll propose an explanation for this finding below.)<\/p>\n

However, retrieval practice made a clearly measurable difference<\/em>. Students who reviewed material averaged a B-. Those who self-tested averaged a B.<\/p>\n

Given that both study techniques take the same amount of time, it obviously makes sense to self-test. Students who do so learn more. Retrieval practice just works.<\/p>\n

Spacing Doesn’t Help? Or, Spacing Already Helped?<\/h2>\n

If we’ve got so much research showing the benefits of spacing<\/a>, why didn’t it help students in this class?<\/p>\n

We don’t know for sure, but one answer stands out as very probable: the professor already did the spacing for the students<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That is: the syllabus included frequent review sessions. It had several cumulative tests. The class structure itself required students to think about the material several times over the semester.<\/p>\n

Even if students wanted to cram, they couldn’t wait until the last moment to review. The test schedule alone required them to review multiple times.<\/p>\n

So: the students’ own additional<\/em> spacing study habits didn’t help.<\/p>\n

However, in a class where the professor hadn’t required spacing, it most likely would have done so.<\/p>\n

The Bigger Picture<\/h2>\n

This possibility, in my view, underlines a bigger point about spacing and retrieval practice:<\/p>\n

For the most part, students have primary responsibility for retrieval practice<\/strong><\/em>, whereas teachers have primary responsibility for spacing<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

That is: students — especially older students — should learn to review by using retrieval practice strategies. (Of course, especially with younger students, teachers should teach RP strategies. And, offer frequent reminders.)<\/p>\n

Teachers — in our turn — should design our courses to space practice out. (Of course, students should do what they can to space practice as well.)<\/p>\n

In other words: retrieval practice is largely a study<\/em> habit. Spacing is largely a teaching<\/em> habit.<\/p>\n

Students will get the most benefit from this research when we divide up responsibility this way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some study habits have been shown to work in psychology labs. Do they work in college classrooms? A recent study shows that “retrieval practice” clearly helps students learn. The findings on “the spacing effect” are harder to interpret…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15,66,12],"class_list":["post-3497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-classroom-advice","tag-desirable-difficulty","tag-retrieval-practice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3497"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3946,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497\/revisions\/3946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}