When are difficulties desirable for children? First steps toward a developmental and individual differences account of the spacing effect.

Abstract

The spacing effect is one of the most robust and replicable phenomena in psychological science, and holds promise for improving children’s learning outcomes in educational settings. However, there is a striking limitation in the literature: very few studies have been conducted with young children (0–5-year-olds). Moreover, most studies examine children’s learning on the group level, whereas early curricula typically focus on both group and individual outcomes. We predict that developmental and individual differences in visual attention, memory, prior knowledge, and metamemory will affect children’s learning on massed and spaced schedules. Thus, we argue that the next critical step in research on the spacing effect is to develop a developmental and individual differences account. Indeed, this account will address limitations in theory and barriers in implementing the spacing effect in early educational settings.

Desirable difficulties in theory and practice.

“…The essay by Knabe and Vlach (2020) draws our attention to the fact that while the desirable difficulty of spacing, rather than massing, practice is one of the most reliable and extensively studied phenomena in the field of learning, it remains the case that little research has been focused on the potential of spaced practice to improve children’s learning, particularly their learning in a classroom setting. While pointing out the need to investigate the promise of this strategy for children’s learning more fully, they also provide an important warning—namely, that for such studies to be meaningful, they must be conducted in ways that take into account the potential effects of the many individual differences among children in the early years of their living and learning.…”

A lack of retrieval practice effects in children's recognition and recall memory of novel words during storybook reading

“…Another hypothesis for why there was an absence of a retrieval practice effect is that young children differ from adults in their prior knowledge (e.g., Bjorklund, 1987;Shing and Brod, 2016;Knabe and Vlach, 2020); children are new learners and have acquired less knowledge than older children and adults. Studies have shown that the amount of prior knowledge affects how well newly learned information is stored and retrieved (Chi, 1978;Schneider et al, 1993;Elischberger, 2005;Brod et al, 2013).…”

Everyday challenges to the practice of desirable difficulties: Introduction to the forum.

“…More generally, the application of desirable difficulties must consider students' goals, interests, and histories with variable educational contexts. This individualized approach has much in common with the developmental approach of Knabe and Vlach (2020) and with Hodges and Lohse's (2020) understanding of motor learning (and possibly with contingency management).…”

“…Regardless, progress is likely to be slow, given the power of the first thing learned (Bouton, 2000), unless we initiate the training of useful strategies very early, developmentally. In fact, the essay by Knabe and Vlach (2020) reports progress in the study of spaced learning by very young children. These investigators argue more generally for a developmental approach that is necessarily responsive to individual experience (a point of view reminiscent of behavioral interventions).…”