Retrieval practice and spacing in an engineering mathematics classroom: Do the effects add up?

Spacing and Interleaving Effects Require Distinct Theoretical Bases: a Systematic Review Testing the Cognitive Load and Discriminative-Contrast Hypotheses

“…The Spacing Effect and Evidence Supporting Hypothesis 1 Except for Bego et al (2017) published in conference proceedings and Ebbinghaus (1885) published in a book, the other studies were all journal articles. All of the 48 spaced practice studies (see Table 1) obtained the spacing effect and used a rest-from-deliberate-learning period either by distributing learning sessions across multiple days or months or by inserting rest-from-deliberate-learning activities between learning sessions for 30 s to hours or days.…”

Board 121: Retrieval Practice and Spacing: Effects on Long-Term Learning among Engineering Precalculus Students

“…Having previously found that within-semester retention of precalculus knowledge benefits equally from increasing the amount of retrieval practice and increasing the spacing of retrieval practice [17], the present study examined across-semester retention as a function of the same two interventions. We found that, one month after the completion of a precalculus course, memory was significantly better for precalculus objectives that had been the target of spaced quizzing versus massed quizzing.…”

“…In a follow-up to Hopkins et al [16], Bego and colleagues [17] again examined the effect of increasing the spacing of retrieval practice in a precalculus course for engineers while simultaneously examining the effect of increasing the amount of retrieval practice. They replicated the finding that spacing increased retention of key course objectives on the final exam in the course and found that increasing the amount of retrieval practice had a roughly comparable effect (although there was some evidence that the effect of increasing spacing was more robust than the effect of increase the amount of practice).…”

“…The study presented here is an extension of Bego et al [17]. The same students who took the precalculus course were tracked if they continued into a calculus course the following semester.…”

An Interdisciplinary Research Group’s Collaboration to Understand First-Year Engineering Retention

“…A summer intervention improved algebra skill for incoming students, however did not impact performance in Math 101. o Spaced retrieval practice enhances learning in pre-calculus [42]. o Increasing the amount of retrieval practice impacts short-term but not long-term retention in precalculus, whereas more spacing of retrieval practice does impact both short-term and long-term timescales [43], [44]. o Physics students who explored a difficult concept with novel problem-solving prior to instruction gained greater conceptual knowledge than students who received instruction followed by the same problem-solving activity [45].…”