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ERIC Number: EJ1460829
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Jan
Pages: 20
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0888-4080
EISSN: EISSN-1099-0720
Available Date: 2025-02-06
Initial Practice Performance Moderates the Distributed Practice Effect in Complex Procedural Knowledge
Applied Cognitive Psychology, v39 n1 e70032 2025
Successful adoption of proven effective practice strategies such as distributed practice may contribute to much-needed improvement in mathematics performance. However, it is not yet fully understood if distributed practice is beneficial for long-term retention of complex procedural knowledge and, if so, for which initial practice performance level this spacing effect occurs. To investigate these two questions, we used a randomised between-subjects design (Practice Strategy: massed vs. distributed) with 61 primary school students' mathematical problem-solving performance as dependent variable. First, as hypothesised, we found a spacing effect on students' problem-solving performance. Second, again as hypothesised, we found that the magnitude of this spacing effect depended on their initial practice performance. Our findings imply that distributed practice leads to better long-term problem-solving performance than massed practice, but only for students with medium initial practice performance who have not yet completely mastered the task.
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www-wiley-com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Data File: URL: https://osf.io/d7em4/
Author Affiliations: 1Department of Online Learning and Instruction, Faculty of Educational Sciences, Open University of the Netherlands, Heerlen, the Netherlands; 2Centre of Expertise Education and Learning, Thomas More University of Applied Sciences, Antwerpen, Belgium