Retrieval practice is an effective strategy to promote long-term retention and learning, but students do not always use it in the most effective ways. Applying various intervention design principles that leverage sociomotivational research, we created an intervention targeted not only at teaching students about the efficacy of retrieval practice,…

Asking good questions is vital for scientific learning and discovery, but improving this complex skill is a formidable challenge. Here, we show in two experiments (N = 152) that teaching others--"learning-by-teaching"--enhances one's ability to generate higher-order research questions that create new knowledge, relative to two other…

Our civilization recognizes that errors can be valuable learning opportunities, but for decades, they have widely been avoided or, at best, allowed to occur as serendipitous accidents. The present research tested whether greater learning success could paradoxically be achieved through making errors by intentional design, relative to traditional…

Our review explores the effectiveness of resilience interventions on improving resilience, reducing depressive symptoms, and overcoming stress symptoms among higher education students. We conducted a systematic search in 10 electronic English and Chinese language databases. Twenty-nine randomized, controlled trials (RCTs) met the inclusion…

Psychological Distress Comorbid with Suicidal Episodes (PDCSE) is one of the most common occurrences among college students. Protocols could guide the treatment of such disorders. Therefore, this study developed and provided parameters for assessing the effectiveness, acceptability, and feasibility of Cognitive Resilience Training (CRT) using a…

The present study examined the effects of a classroom intervention on students' metacognitive monitoring of retrieval practice performance feedback and metacognitive control of future study decisions. A true experimental design was used to randomly assign 103 undergraduate students from an education course to trained (n = 49) and control (n = 54)…

This study seeks to identify profiles of depressive symptoms trajectories among a sample of 2,696 Finnish students (56.8% female), followed from 13-14 to 18-19 years old. Piecewise growth mixture analyses identified 5 trajectories: Low Stabilizing (6.20%), Mild Increasing (47.90%), Moderate Stabilizing (36.82%), Low Increasing (3.62%), and High…

Laboratory research has demonstrated that when students are instructed to use retrieval (i.e., recalling from memory information to be learned) rather than rereading (i.e., reading the material repeatedly) they learn better. However, little is known about spontaneous use of retrieval. In the present studies, we designed a scale to measure…

Testing (having students recall material) and worked examples (having students study a completed problem) are both recommended as effective methods for improving learning. The two strategies rely on different underlying cognitive processes and thus may strengthen different types of learning in different ways. Across three experiments, we examine…

Although there is increasing recognition of the value of mixed-methods research, many publication spaces remain methodologically siloed, primarily publishing either qualitative or quantitative research studies. This methodological siloing presents a risk to coherence in the psychological sciences if qualitative and quantitative research traditions…

The provision of feedback with complex information beyond the correct answer, that is, elaborated feedback, can powerfully shape learning outcomes such as transfer, that is, the ability to extend what has been learned in one context to new contexts. However, an understanding of neurocognitive processes of elaborated feedback during…

Multiple-choice questions (MCQs) are popular in vocabulary software because they can be scored automatically and are compatible with many input devices (e.g., touchscreens). Answering MCQs is beneficial for learning, especially when learners retrieve knowledge from memory to evaluate plausible answer alternatives. However, such retrieval may not…

This research introduces the "Mindfulness Mindset Scale," a concise and reliable tool designed to measure beliefs about the malleability of mindfulness skills. Study 1 (N = 285) revealed a single-factor structure through exploratory factor analysis, further validated in Study 2 (N = 286) using confirmatory factor analysis. Studies 3a (N…

Prior research has proposed that boredom and academic performance are reciprocally causal of one another. The present study sought to better understand the relationship between boredom and academic performance by, for the first time: distinguishing between boredom proneness, state boredom, and judgments of task boringness; conducting experiments…

Retrieval practice enhances the learning of educational materials, and prior work has shown that practicing retrieval can enhance learning as much as or more than creating concept maps. Few studies have combined retrieval practice with other learning activities, and no prior work has explored whether concept mapping and retrieval practice might…