Spacing Simultaneously Promotes Multiple Forms of Learning in Children's Science Curriculum

Abstract

The spacing effect refers to the robust finding that long-term memory is promoted when learning events are distributed in time rather than massed in immediate succession. The current study extended research on the spacing effect by examining whether spaced learning schedules can simultaneously promote multiple forms of learning, such as memory and generalization, in the context of an educational intervention. Thirty-six early elementary school-aged children were presented with science lessons on one of three schedules: massed, clumped, and spaced. At a 1-week delayed test, children in the spaced condition demonstrated improvements in both memory and generalization, significantly outperforming children in the other conditions. However, there was no observed relationship between children's memory performance and generalization performance. The current study highlights directions for future research and contributes to a growing body of work demonstrating the benefits of spaced learning for educational curriculum.

The Spacing Effect in Children's Generalization of Knowledge: Allowing Children Time to Forget Promotes Their Ability to Learn

“…The questions required children to generalize the simple concept (e.g., what creatures eat based on size features) or the complex concept (e.g., what happens when an event changes the structure of the food chain). The spaced learning schedule promoted generalization of simple and complex concepts to a greater degree than the massed and clumped schedules (Gluckman et al., ; Vlach & Sandhofer, ). Taken together, these findings suggest that spaced learning, and the forgetting that occurs between learning events, can promote many levels of generalization, including both simple and complex concepts, over extended periods of time.…”

“…Given the importance of categorization in educational curricula (Bransford & Schwartz, 1999), my colleagues and I have also examined spaced learning and generalization in conceptual learning in educational contexts (Gluckman, Vlach, & Sandhofer, 2014;Vlach & Sandhofer, 2012a). This research has had two primary goals (a) to examine spaced learning, forgetting, and generalization across longer intervals, such as days and weeks, and (b) to determine whether spaced learning promotes many levels of generalization, such as simple and complex concepts that are often incorporated into educational curricula.…”

“…An example of a simple concept is that Figure 2. An example of three learning schedules-massed, clumped, and spaced-used in studies examining spaced learning and children's acquisition and generalization of educational concepts (Gluckman, Vlach, & Sandhofer, 2014;Vlach & Sandhofer, 2012a, 2012b. Children in the massed condition received all four lessons in immediate succession, preventing forgetting from occurring between the lessons.…”

The right time to learn: mechanisms and optimization of spaced learning

“…His studies were based on the self-testing of acquired memory for lists of syllables, but the superiority of spaced training has now been established for many additional forms of human learning. For example, spaced learning is more effective than massed learning for facts, concepts and lists 2–4 , skill learning and motor learning 5,6 , in classroom education (including science learning and vocabulary learning) 7–9 , and in generalization of conceptual knowledge in children 10 . Spaced training also leads to improved memory in invertebrates, such as the mollusk Aplysia californica 11–14 , Drosophila melanogaster 15,16 and bees 17 , and in rodents 18,19 and non-human primates 20,21 .…”

Realizing Relevance: The Influence of Domain‐Specific Information on Generation of New Knowledge Through Integration in 4‐ to 8‐Year‐Old Children

“…Second, open‐ended performance is generally acknowledged to be more challenging than forced‐choice selection, making it reasonable to award a higher score to children who met the greater challenge. Assigning different point values to different phases of testing also explicitly acknowledges that children earned their total score in different ways: through self‐generation versus forced‐choice (see Ghetti, Goodman, Eisen, Qin, & Davis, ; Gluckman, Vlach, & Sandhofer, ; Neisser & Harsch, , for similar approaches).…”