Good evening everybody - I thought you might like the findings from a recent study by Doug Rohrer and Harold Paschler: They had two groups of students study new vocabulary in different ways. One group studied the words 5 times; these students got a perfect score no more than once. The others studied them 10 times and got at least three perfect scores.
Then the psychologists quizzed all the students, once one week later and again three weeks after that.
After a week, the 10 times students scored better, but the advantage disappeared after three weeks.
In other words, as reported in the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, "cramming" all the study on a single topic together diminishes learning. It's better to leave it alone for a while and then return to it, and indeed the longer you want new learning to endure, the longer the optimal break between study sessions. This is what we at the Academy take into account when the online parallels send out their
recaps and when we recap items in class.
Rohrer and Pashler's results even extend beyond memorization and into abstract learning like maths (and hence accountancy). Now if only a researcher could explain how to get students to listen to their advice!
Richard
www.richardclarkeacademy.com
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