Why is distributed practice effective

Massed practice is also more effective in the higher order verbal information area. Strong research inference suggests the continuance of distributed practice for "lower level" tasks, particularly in the verbal information areas. Further research is needed to discover factors that limit or negate the spacing effect. Moss, Vanessa D.

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Advanced Search. In class, straight away. For homework Tuesday night. In class on Wednesday. For homework on Thursday night. In class on Friday. For homework the following Tuesday night.

Distributed practice involves practising the same thing :. Over several sessions. With sessions spread out over time. Therefore, distributed practice is not the same as reviewing topic one on Monday, topic 2 on Tuesday etc. For example, one Year 7 Mathematics textbook may have 18 practice questions that involve finding the volume of a prism. In the above example of 6 distributed practice sessions, students may complete 3 questions per session. It is important to note that distributed practice must include practice , not just rereading or reviewing notes.

Research shows that practice is far more effective at helping students to remember what they have learned. This is why this form of practice is both an evidence-based and a high-impact teaching strategy.

So we know that distributing practice sessions over time helps students to remember more. But how should you go about using this knowledge in your classroom? You need to consider how long you want your students to remember what you have taught them. Ideally, you want them to learn things forever. Students were required to learn facts taught in the classroom and also worked on slightly different but conceptually similar maths exercises that were massed or distributed.

The massed practice group worked on three sets of exercises in one day while the second group worked on one set for three days. They then completed follow-up tests at one and six weeks. The expectation was that students in the distributed practice group would outperform the massed practice group. It was also hypothesised that the differences would be even more marked six weeks later due to previous studies finding that the positive effect of distributed practice increases over time.

Results were certainly encouraging but didn't quite match expectations. Overall, distributed practice did lead to better retention in the short term. However, there was no significant improvement at the six-week time point, even though grade 7 students showed greater stability than grade 3.

These latter findings, therefore, also run counter to previous research. A particular weakness of the study is the low sample size of just participants. However, the results were examined using a technique known as Bayesian analysis, which is thought to be more appropriate for use with smaller samples. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see if these results remain consistent if the study is replicated with larger samples.

Of course, the big question for teachers is whether this particular study implies that they should replace massed practice with distributed learning. Barzagar Nazari and Ebersbach do conclude by indicating that distributed practice provides a promising strategy in the context of classroom learning, but does this mean that teachers should start using it in their classrooms? Perhaps the simple answer is that introducing distributed practice is unlikely to have any negative impact on learning and could also provide a useful and worthwhile project for teachers interested in carrying out their own small-scale research studies.

Marc Smith is a chartered psychologist and teacher. He tweets marcxsmith. It only takes a moment and you'll get access to more news, plus courses, jobs and teaching resources tailored to you. Already signed up? Log in. Distributed practice is one such disruptive theory.