The study was undertaken to determine the effects of massed and distributed practice on the performance of beginning gymnastics skills, to secure data on these effects, and to evaluate these effects in acquiring the necessary components of motor fitness for basic gymnastics skills.

In a distributed learning strategy, study time is spread across multiple study sessions, without increasing total study time. The benefits of distributed practice, also known as spaced practice, on learning of rote-memory tasks (e.g., spelling, addition, and cued-recall of word pairs) are well known. However, few researchers have looked at the effects of distributed practice on the learning of abstract materials (e.g., physics problems, logical deductions, and algebra). We examined the effects of distributed practice on learning the abstract task of matrix multiplication. In Experiment 1, we taught participants matrix multiplication in either a massed (i.e., 0-day interstudy gap), or distributed (i.e., 7-day interstudy gap) format and tested students at 2 or 21 days after completion of the last study session. Results showed no significant differences between the massed and spaced groups. However, when only those participants scoring 80% or greater on study session one were included in the analyses, a benefit of spacing was seen at the 21-day retention interval. Although not statistically significant, this leads us to believe that spacing does have benefits for abstract learning when the task is mastered initially. Experiment 2 looked at overlearning as another learning strategy. In overlearning, all study takes place in one session, but participants continue to study after mastery of material has been achieved. It is commonly accepted that overlearning is a beneficial strategy, but it is unknown whether the benefits are worth the time invested. We assessed the effects of two levels of massed practice to gauge the benefits of overlearning on long-term retention. Participants completed either 2 or 8 matrix multiplication problems (i.e., low or high massing, respectively) and were tested 1 or 4 weeks after the study session. Results showed a benefit of high massing when analyses included participants who mastered the material (i.e., scored over 50%) during the study session. However, this higher degree of learning was not particularly efficient, because this latter result suggests that overlearning may not be worth the time invested.

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 39 pages. / Thesis (M.A.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: In a distributed learning strategy, study time is spread across multiple study sessions, without increasing total study time. The benefits of distributed practice, also known as spaced practice, on learning of rote-memory tasks (e.g., spelling, addition, and cued-recall of word pairs) are well known. However, few researchers have looked at the effects of distributed practice on the learning of abstract materials (e.g., physics problems, logical deductions, and algebra). We examined the effects of distributed practice on learning the abstract task of matrix multiplication. In Experiment 1, we taught participants matrix multiplication in either a massed (i.e., 0-day interstudy gap), or distributed (i.e., 7-day interstudy gap) format and tested students at 2 or 21 days after completion of the last study session. Results showed no significant differences between the massed and spaced groups. / ABSTRACT: However, when only those participants scoring 80% or greater on study session one were included in the analyses, a benefit of spacing was seen at the 21-day retention interval. Although not statistically significant, this leads us to believe that spacing does have benefits for abstract learning when the task is mastered initially. Experiment 2 looked at overlearning as another learning strategy. In overlearning, all study takes place in one session, but participants continue to study after mastery of material has been achieved. It is commonly accepted that overlearning is a beneficial strategy, but it is unknown whether the benefits are worth the time invested. We assessed the effects of two levels of massed practice to gauge the benefits of overlearning on long-term retention. Participants completed either 2 or 8 matrix multiplication problems (i.e., low or high massing, respectively) and were tested 1 or 4 weeks after the study session. / ABSTRACT: Results showed a benefit of high massing when analyses included participants who mastered the material (i.e., scored over 50%) during the study session. However, this higher degree of learning was not particularly efficient, because this latter result suggests that overlearning may not be worth the time invested. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) manikins are an educational technology tool employed to train nurses to perform high-quality CPR during real-life cardiac arrest events. However, a gap exists between CPR skills learned in training and those used in real life. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine how CPR feedback and anxiety in registered nurses affect CPR performance on a manikin. Distributed practice and attentional control theory served as the foundations for this study. The research questions addressed the influence of demographic factors, real-time CPR feedback, and simulated hospital noises on CPR performance using CPR manikins. The study included a randomized longitudinal experimental design. Data were collected from 120 nurses via a demographic questionnaire, the Cognitive and Somatic Anxiety Questionnaire, and CPR compression performance feedback via a Zoll R Series defibrillator. Data analysis involved a repeated measures ANOVA or a regression analysis. Findings indicated that participants’ age predicted CPR performance. Receiving real-time CPR feedback led to a statistically significant improvement in performance, and the introduction of hospital noises did not predict CPR performance. Findings may be used to enhance individual performance of CPR, which may benefit society through improved patient care during cardiac arrest.

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Students often have a difficult time understanding native speakers of their target language. This thesis examines two theories that may help students better understand NSs: spaced versus massed practice and the use of technology to enhance input. The study had the students of four sections of German 101 at BYU, divided into a spaced practice group that watched authentic German videos five minutes a day, six days a week for seven weeks and a massed practice group that watched authentic German videos for half an hour, one day a week for seven weeks, then gave them an immediate and a delayed listening comprehension posttest to see which improved more, along with several surveys to learn more about extraneous variables and the student experience with the activity. The results showed no significant difference between the two groups, but this is likely due to the many limitations of the study. The two biggest limitations were that of the 75 potential participants, only 13 allowed for their information to be used and had usable information, and that all of those 13 participants did too well on both posttests to be able to differentiate between them, so no conclusions were able to be drawn from this study.

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of South Florida, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: Current learner-centered trends, such as supplying students with content on demand (CoD), coupled with research findings that indicate distributed practice is superior to massed practice in terms of increased memory function and that the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) is superior to traditional instruction in terms of academic achievement, content retention, and student satisfaction, prompted an investigation merging these two lines of research. Although PSI is more feasible today based on advances in technology and students prefer its self-paced component, they often procrastinate. In fact, this problem is resurfacing in distance education courses and is reflected in low completion rates as well as in the number of nonstarters. Numerous researchers have used deadline contingencies to reduce procrastination without adversely affecting student achievement and satisfaction, but few have considered the benefit of enhanced memory. / ABSTRACT: It was hypothesized that, by providing students with CoD, a lesser form of self-pacing, and by using contingencies to regulate the pace of assignment submissions, procrastination would be reduced and content retention subsequently increased without detriment to immediate achievement and student satisfaction. To quantify differences in procrastination level, a comprehensive, sensitive, and reliable measure of procrastination, called the rate of relative digression from a target response (RDTR), was proposed. Undergraduate, preservice teachers in an instructional technology course were randomly assigned to one of three treatments. All groups were given the same deadlines. For one treatment, the deadlines were recommended (R) with one absolute deadline at the end of the treatment interval. For another they were conditional (C) with opportunities to earn bonus and penalty points for early and late work. / ABSTRACT: For a third, they were all absolute (A) with no assignment accepted for credit after its due date. Although many problems experienced by students in A made findings for this group inconclusive, analysis of differences between students in R and C indicated that C was superior in reducing procrastination and enhancing memory function without detriment to immediate achievement, pacing preference, and course satisfaction. Although more research is needed to replicate, extend, and clarify findings, these results support using conditional deadlines for assignments when learners are supplied CoD. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Current learner-centered trends, such as supplying students with content on demand (CoD), coupled with research findings that indicate distributed practice is superior to massed practice in terms of increased memory function and that the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) is superior to traditional instruction in terms of academic achievement, content retention, and student satisfaction, prompted an investigation merging these two lines of research. Although PSI is more feasible today based on advances in technology and students prefer its self-paced component, they often procrastinate. In fact, this problem is resurfacing in distance education courses and is reflected in low completion rates as well as in the number of nonstarters. Numerous researchers have used deadline contingencies to reduce procrastination without adversely affecting student achievement and satisfaction, but few have considered the benefit of enhanced memory. It was hypothesized that, by providing students with CoD, a lesser form of self-pacing, and by using contingencies to regulate the pace of assignment submissions, procrastination would be reduced and content retention subsequently increased without detriment to immediate achievement and student satisfaction. To quantify differences in procrastination level, a comprehensive, sensitive, and reliable measure of procrastination, called the rate of relative digression from a target response (RDTR), was proposed. Undergraduate, preservice teachers in an instructional technology course were randomly assigned to one of three treatments. All groups were given the same deadlines. For one treatment, the deadlines were recommended (R) with one absolute deadline at the end of the treatment interval. For another they were conditional (C) with opportunities to earn bonus and penalty points for early and late work. For a third, they were all absolute (A) with no assignment accepted for credit after its due date. Although many problems experienced by students in A made findings for this group inconclusive, analysis of differences between students in R and C indicated that C was superior in reducing procrastination and enhancing memory function without detriment to immediate achievement, pacing preference, and course satisfaction. Although more research is needed to replicate, extend, and clarify findings, these results support using conditional deadlines for assignments when learners are supplied CoD.

I det här arbetet har variationen av närliggande övningsuppgifter i svenska matematikläromedel för gymnasiet studerats, genom att framförallt betrakta förekomsten av inflätad övning och dess motsats, blockövning, men även SSDD-uppgifter. Detta gjordes genom att kategorisera uppgifternas yt- och djupstrukturer och definiera inflätad övning och SSDD-uppgifter utifrån likhet och olikhet av dessa. En diskussion av vilka konsekvenser den observerade variationen kan ha för lärande har också gjorts, genom teoretiska perspektiv av relevans för inflätad övning, vilka främst varit distribuerat lärande, kontrastering och motivation. Resultaten visar att blockövning dominerar med 65 % av lektionsuppgifterna, mot 14 % inflätad övning, men att denna uppdelning varierar mycket. Inflätad övning är koncentrerad till de blandade övningarna i slutet på varje kapitel, och till ett fåtal avsnitt, medan nästan hälften av avsnitten inte har några inflätade övningar. SSDD-uppgifter finns nästan inte alls. Konsekvenserna är främst ett kortsiktigt lärande som inte ger eleverna tillräckligt med övning i att välja strategi när de ska lösa uppgifter, jämfört med om en högre grad av inflätad övning hade använts.

La façon dont une information se répète au cours du temps a une influence sur la façon dont nous nous souviendrons de cette information. Les recherches en psychologie ont mis en évidence l’effet de pratique distribuée, selon lequel on retient mieux les informations qui se répètent avec des intervalles inter-répétitions longs que celles qui se répètent avec des intervalles courts. Nos travaux ont porté spécifiquement sur les situations où l’information se répète sur plusieurs jours, et nous avons comparé l’efficacité relative de différents types d’agencement temporel des répétitions. Un agencement uniforme consiste en des répétitions se produisant à intervalles réguliers, un agencement expansif en des répétitions se produisant selon des intervalles de plus en plus espacés, et un agencement contractant en des répétitions se produisant selon des intervalles de plus en plus rapprochés. Les Expériences 1 et 2 consistaient en une phase d’apprentissage d’une semaine et ont révélé la supériorité des agencements expansif et uniforme après un délai de rétention de deux jours. L’Expérience 3 consistait en une phase d’apprentissage de deux semaines, et les sujets étaient ensuite testés lors de trois délais de rétention différents (2, 6 ou 13 jours). La supériorité de l’agencement expansif sur les deux autres agencements est apparue progressivement, suggérant que les différents agencements induisaient des taux d’oubli différents. Nous avons également tenté de tester différentes théories explicatives des effets de l’agencement temporel des répétitions sur la mémorisation, en particulier les théories de la variabilité de l’encodage (Expérience 4) et de la récupération en phase d’étude (Expérience 2). Les résultats observés tendent à confirmer la théorie de la récupération en phase d’étude. Nous insistons sur l’importance de la prise en compte des apports des autres disciplines des sciences cognitives dans l’étude de l’effet de pratique distribuée. / How information is repeated over time determines future recollection of this information. Studies in psychology revealed a distributed practice effect, that is, one retains information better when its occurrences are separated by long lags rather than by short lags. Our studies focused specifically on cases in which items were repeated upon several days. We compared the efficiency of three different temporal schedules of repetitions: A uniform schedule that consisted in repetitions occurring with equal intervals, an expanding schedule that consisted in repetitions occurring with longer and longer intervals, and a contracting schedule that consisted in repetitions occurring with shorter and shorter intervals. In Experiments 1 and 2, the learning phase lasted one week and the retention interval lasted two days. It was shown that the expanding and uniform schedules were more efficient than the contracting schedule. In Experiment 3, the learning phase lasted two weeks and the retention interval lasted 2, 6, or 13 days. It was shown that the superiority of the expanding schedule over the other two schedules appeared gradually when the retention interval increased, suggesting that different schedules yielded different forgetting rates. We also tried to test major theories of the distributed practice effect, such as the encoding variability (Experiment 4) and the study-phase retrieval (Experiment 2) theories. Our results appeared to be consistent with the study-phase retrieval theory. We concluded our dissertation by emphasizing the importance of considering findings from other areas in cognitive science–especially neuroscience and computer science–in the study of the distributed practice effect.