How can we strategically and systematically learn from our errors? Over their long history, errors have traditionally been prevented entirely or, at best, permitted to occur spontaneously. Across three experiments, we tested and found evidence for a counterintuitive phenomenon that we termed the derring effect-deliberately committing errors even when one already knows the correct answers produces superior learning than avoiding them, particularly when one's errors are corrected. Learners engaged in an educationally relevant task of learning scientific term-definition concepts via open-book study by deliberately generating conceptually incorrect definitions with or without correction, or copying and underlining them (Experiment 1). On a cued recall test, deliberate erring outperformed errorless copying, with error correction yielding an additional benefit. This advantage of deliberate erring persisted over actively generating alternative conceptually correct answers (Experiment 2), which in turn surpassed copying. Even when errorless generation was given a further boost to involve a higher degree of elaboration by prompting learners to generate a specific real-world example that illustrated or applied each concept, deliberately committing and correcting errors still produced better learning (Experiment 3). Altogether, the derring effect is neither fully attributable to a generation nor an elaboration benefit, but stems at least in part from enhanced target processing specific to having first deliberately produced incorrect responses. Notwithstanding deliberate erring's prowess, learners were largely oblivious to its benefits, misjudging the strategy as less effective. Both theoretical and educational implications of positioning errors as active, systematic, and intentional events in learning are discussed.

Our civilization recognizes that errors can be valuable learning opportunities, but for decades, they have widely been avoided or, at best, allowed to occur as serendipitous accidents. The present research tested whether greater learning success could paradoxically be achieved through making errors by intentional design, relative to traditional errorless learning methods. We show that deliberately committing and correcting errors even when one knows the correct answers enhances learning-a counterintuitive phenomenon that we termed the derring effect. Across two experiments (N = 160), learners engaged in open-book study of scientific expository texts and were then tested on their retention and higher-order application of the material to analyze a novel news event. Deliberate error commission and correction during study produced not only better recall performance, but also superior knowledge application compared to two errorless study techniques that are popular among students and educational researchers: copying with underlining, and elaborative studying with concept mapping (Experiment 1). These learning benefits persisted even over generating alternative conceptually correct answers, revealing that the derring effect is not merely attributable to generation or elaboration alone, but is unique to producing incorrect responses (Experiment 2). Yet, learners were largely unaware of these advantages even after experiencing them. Our results suggest that avoiding errors in learning may not always be most optimal. Rather, deliberate erring is a powerful strategy to enhance meaningful learning. We discuss implications for educational practice in redesigning conventional approaches to errors: To err is human; to deliberately err is divine. Educational Impact and Implications StatementErrors are ripe with learning opportunity, but have traditionally been avoided or simply allowed to occur spontaneously. Here, we provide evidence for the derring effect-deliberately committing and correcting errors even when we know the correct answers enhances learning. Relative to popular errorless techniques such as copying with underlining, concept mapping, and even generating alternative correct answers, deliberate erring improved not only knowledge retention, but also higher-order application of learning. Yet, students were largely unaware of these benefits. Deliberate erring is a powerful way of learning from failure for greater success.

No abstract

Transfer of learning is a fundamental goal of education but is challenging to achieve, especially where far transfer to remote contexts is at stake. How can we improve learners’ flexible application of knowledge to distant domains? In a counterintuitive phenomenon termed the derring effect , deliberately committing and correcting errors in low-stakes contexts enhances learning more than avoiding errors. Whereas this benefit has been demonstrated with tests in domains similar to those in the initial learning task, the present set of three experiments ( N = 120) investigated whether deliberate erring boosts far transfer of conceptual knowledge to dissimilar domains. Undergraduates studied scientific expository texts either by generating conceptually correct responses or by deliberately generating conceptually erroneous responses then correcting them. Deliberate erring improved not only retention (Experiment 1), but also far transfer on inferential test questions that required applying the learned concepts to remote knowledge domains (e.g., from biology/vaccines to geography/forest management techniques; Experiment 2). This advantage held even over a control that further involved spotting and correcting the same errors that one’s peers had deliberately made (Experiment 3). Yet, learners failed to predict or recognize the benefits of deliberate erring even after the test. Altogether, these results suggest that the derring effect is specific to generating incorrect, but not correct, elaborations. Neither does mere exposure to others’ errors nor juxtaposing these errors with the correct responses suffice. Rather, guiding learners to personally commit and correct deliberate errors is vital for enhancing generalization and far transfer of learning to distant knowledge domains. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10648-023-09739-z.

The ability to recognize and distinguish among varying musical styles is essential to developing aural skills and musicianship. Yet, this task can be difficult for music learners, particularly nonexperts. To address this challenge and guide music education practice, this study drew on cognitive psychological principles to investigate the effect of interleaved presentation of music pieces by various classical music composers on learning to identify these composers’ styles. Participants with 4 or fewer years of musical experience were presented with music pieces from six composers in an interleaved manner (alternating between listening to different composers’ works) and music pieces from another six composers in a blocked fashion (listening to works by one composer at a time before moving on to the next). A later test in which participants had to classify novel pieces by the same 12 composers revealed the superiority of interleaved over blocked presentation, although most participants misjudged blocking to be more effective than interleaving. This finding provides evidence for the utility of interleaving in teaching music composers’ styles and extends the literature on the interleaving effect in category induction to the auditory domain. Practical implications and future directions for the use of interleaving in music education are discussed.