Cepeda, Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis
One of the major ideas that I took away from this reading was that the retention of information is better achieved when spacing strategies are implemented rather than mass presentations.
On page 5 it reads : "Spaced presentations led to markedly better final-test performance, compared with massed presentations. For retention intervals less than 1 min, spaced presentations improved final-test performance by 9%, compared with massed presentations (see Table 1). "
On page 12 it reads: "When participants learned individual items at two different points in time (spaced; lag of 1 s or more), equating total study time for each item, they recalled a greater percentage of items than when the same study time was nearly uninterrupted (massed; lag of less than 1 s)."
I find it quite amazing that final test performance can increase by almost 10% by simply spacing instruction in intervals less than 1 minute. According to this meta-analysis the overwhelming majority of studies agree that spacing improves long-term retention of material. There are, however, a few studies that showed spacing to have no effect or a negative effect.
"Only 12 of 271 comparisons of massed and spaced performance showed no effect or a negative effect from spacing, making the spacing effect quite robust. Most of these 12 comparisons used the same task type as studies that did show a spacing benefit—paired associate learning." (6)
At one point the author wrote about the different learning domains and the effects of spacing in those domains. It was clear that spacing can help in learning verbal information. However, it was not clear to me whether or not they found that spacing had a positive effect on motor skills and intellectual skills.
It seems that the jury is still out on expanded spacing. This type of spacing is formulated so that the intervals between study are just enough for you not to start forgetting. This spacing is contrasted to fixed spacing where the intervals between study are set to a constant interval. Many people believe that expanded spacing is effective but, according to this meta-analysis, the has not been enough research done to conclude that this is the case.
A little bit off topic, the author mentioned the "file drawer problem". This is problem that comes from not having research published. Because the research is not published it sits in a file drawer where the data gathered from their research is not accessible for others to reference. This got me thinking about possible solutions to this problem. I wonder if there is a database where these research projects could be submitted? Even cooler would be a database where the raw research data could be stored and accessed by anyone who was interested in that topic.
Dempster, The Spacing Effect
I really enjoyed reading this article. As far as findings supporting the spacing effect, I didn't notice anything that Cepeda did not cover. I did find Dempster's views on the application of the spacing effect to be very insightful. Dempster poses this question:
"Why is it that research findings that appear to have significant implications, such as the spacing effect, often are not utilized by teachers and curriculum makers? In general, the problem is that there is no well-developed implementation model, nor is there a standard methodology for analyzing the conditions that foster the transfer of knowledge from the laboratory to the classroom (see Hosford, 1984, for a discussion). "(1)
Finding ways to transfer laboratory findings to the classroom can be a difficult thing. For my undergraduate degree in secondary education I had to take courses that had to do with learning theory. I feel comfortable saying that the majority of the students in the class had a difficult time taking laboratory research findings and finding ways to apply them in the classroom. As far as secondary education is concerned, most teachers don't care much for the details of why specific learning strategies work. These teachers just want to know that it works and how they implement it.
Dempster states that "the relative lack of applied research in educational settings is, from an educational perspective, the most serious shortcoming of research on the spacing effect." (5) I feel that this statement could be generalized to many different educational practices. I do agree that research in the field of education is valuable. I do not agree that the research should be the end all. Rather, it should be a means to an end. Which end is the application of the findings to better the learning of individuals and therefore better society as a whole.
Dempster gives one reason why educators may chose not to implement the spacing effect in their instruction. He states:
"educators, who often give the impression of having a low regard for fact memorization,might feel that the spacing effect would interfere with the operation of "more laudable, higher mental processes," because it is exactly such memorization to which spacing applies most clearly." (5)
A claim to this effect from an educator would be faulty. If we really want our students to reach the "higher levels" of learning, wouldn't it make more sense to be more effective with the "lower level" learning such as memorization? I would argue that any "higher level" learning requires factual knowledge. Wouldn't obtaining factual knowledge that is available long-term for use in "higher level" learning situations help increase the effectiveness of those "higher level" learning activities.?
Leitner System
This was an interesting method for memorization. Is this a variation of expanding model of spacing. By moving the cards to the different bins you are in effect regulating the expansion of the spacing of your study. I'm not sure if this would be more effective or not. According to the research by Cepeda, at this point there is not a definitive determination whether an expanding model is more beneficial than a fixed model.
Keller, How to integrate learner motivation planning into lesson planning: The ARCS model approach
It should have been apparent from the title of the article that this reading was going to be focusing on a model approach to integrating motivation into instruction but I was secretly hoping that they would focus a little more on motivational theory.
The ARCS model for designing motivation into instruction is another model that is similar to many other design models. After reading about this model and the ADDIE model, I can see how they chould be a good springboard into the design process. However, I also see that one would limit themselves dramatically if they religiously followed the model. I appreciated Keller's recognition of this in the reading. Keller points out that this process is not a prescriptive design process and that not all steps need to be implemented in order to be effective.
The design process is centered on these main ideas.
Attention - Get students attention
Relevance - Motivation is lost if the content has no perceived value to the learner
Confidence - Clear goals and objectives - Proper success / failure attribution
Satisfaction - Emotional reward - recognition, privileges, opportunities ...
The ten steps in the ARCS model are as follows:Obtain course info
1. Obtain audience info
2. Analyze audience
3. Analyze existing materials
4. List objectives & assessments
5. List potential tactics - without regard to their presumed feasibility
6. Select and design
7. Integrate with instruction
8. Select & develop materials
9. Evaluate & revise
In the reading Keller writes about motivation following a curvilinear with performance.
"The second difficulty in identifying a motivational problem lies in the nature of motivation. Motivation follows a curvilinear relationship with performance (Figure 2). As motivation increases, performance increases, but only to an optimal point. Afterward, performance decreases as motivation increases to levels where excessive stress leads to performance decrements. There is always some level of tension, or stress, associated with motivation. On the rising side of the curve it is sometimes referred to as facilitative stress and on the downside as debilitating stress." (5)
I'm not so sure that I agree with this. It seems that Keller is implying that the more motivated you are the more stress you will feel. I wonder what kind of data there is to back up this claim. From my own personal experience it seems that the more motivated I am the less stress is present. However, I do agree with this statement by Keller:
"it would be possible to include a large number of motivational tactics to cover a broad range of motivational conditions, but this would most likely have a negative effect on motivation and performance. The reason is that when students are motivated to learn, they want to work on highly task-relevant activities. They do not want to be distracted with unnecessary motivational activities. For this reason, it would be nice to have computer or multi-media software that can sense a learner’s motivation level and respond adaptively."
In short, don’t try to fix something that's not broken. Simply focus on sustainability.
I appreciated that Keller touched on how the motivational component of instruction must be sustainable. To me this was Keller telling us that the motivation being addresses is not the same as simply getting people hyped up about something. Rather, it is something deeper than simply stirring up emotions.
It would be very interesting to study how motivation works with group dynamics. Is motivation contagious? If it is, it makes sense that Keller states that motivation that is sustainable is motivation that is not directed to solve a "global solution, such as a new set of curriculum materials or an entirely new approach to teaching" (5). If motivation is applied this broadly it will be short lived.
Mind map on motivation
http://www.xmind.net/share/maplebones/motivation/
