Promoting retrieval practice use during self‐study in higher education: The effects of a compact strategy intervention with metacognitive support

Abstract

Intensive training programs have successfully supported students in using cognitive learning strategies. This study investigated whether a compact intervention can promote students' retrieval practice use during self-study for course-relevant materials. In an experiment embedded in a reputation management course, students were either given strategy instructions on retrieval practice (RP condition), strategy instructions and metacognitive email support (RP++) or no support (control).Students' potential retrieval practice use during self-study of key concepts was measured with an online learning environment. Results showed a small but significant effect on retrieval practice use for the RP++ condition as compared to control (p = .005, r = 0.39). No significant differences were found between RP++ and RP, and RP and control and no significant effects were found on a delayed performance test. With our compact intervention, we took a small step in fostering the use of retrieval practice as a learning strategy during self-study.

How task difficulty and academic self-efficacy impact retrieval practice guidance

“…According to the model, when learners have sufficient time and opportunities for self-pacing, they will allocate more time to studying difficult tasks to optimize test performance. If we infer from the results of Experiment 1, from the perspective of materials, previous research used key concepts, which require more understanding rather than memorization, as they can be described using other vocabulary and are relatively simple in terms of difficulty, students rarely engage in precise repeated retrieval in their daily learning (Broeren et al, 2021(Broeren et al, , 2023.Furthermore, providing immediate feedback increases the likelihood that learners will choose to test themselves instead of repeatedly reading (Rivers, 2021). This is because feedback enables learners to self-assess their level of mastery.…”

“…Therefore, some researchers separated the intention to use retrieval practice from its actual use, provided students procedural metacognitive knowledge (that retrieval practice can be implemented flexibly in various formats) and reduced participants' perceived cost, compared to only declarative metacognitive knowledge, there were also no effects of their intervention on reported use of retrieval practice in the long term (Wang et al, 2023). Broeren et al (2023) provided students either strategy instructions on retrieval practice (RP condition), strategy instructions and metacognitive email support (RP++) or no support (control), results showed a small but significant effect on retrieval practice use for the RP++ condition as compared to control, no significant differences were found between RP++ and RP. Until now there is limited evidence to show what affects students' retrieval practice decisions under guidance.…”

When is Learning “Effortful”? Scrutinizing the Concept of Mental Effort in Cognitively Oriented Research from a Motivational Perspective

“…Admittedly, there are also several studies that investigate procedures to enhance learners' execution of activities with high processing requirements in authentic contexts (e.g., Broeren et al, 2023;Chen et al, 2017aChen et al, , 2017bZepeda et al, 2015). In these authentic settings, it is reasonable to assume that learners show substantial effort-by-allocation.…”