Does retrieval practice produce learning because it is an especially effective way to induce elaborative encoding? Four experiments examined this question. Subjects learned word pairs across alternating study and recall periods, and once an item was recalled it was dropped from further practice, repeatedly studied, or repeatedly retrieved on…

Knowledge of lexical items is arguably the most essential aspect of being able to communicate in a foreign language (Richards, 2000). Many studies have examined effective strategies for retaining the meaning of foreign words, but studies investigating the effectiveness of different methods for the retention of essential grammatical features of…

The production effect is the substantial benefit to memory of having studied information aloud as opposed to silently. MacLeod, Gopie, Hourihan, Neary, and Ozubko (2010) have explained this enhancement by suggesting that a word studied aloud acquires a distinctive encoding record and that recollecting this record supports identifying a word…

This study examined how literal symbols affect students' understanding of algebraic expressions. Middle school students (N = 322) were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions in which they were asked to interpret an expression (e.g., 4c + 3b) in a story problem. Each literal symbol represented the price of an item. In the c-and-b condition, the…

This research investigates the effects of prosody on children's recall for stories using two successive studies. Study 1 is an ethnographic exploration of a group of fifth graders creating summaries of a children's story with overt prosodic elements. Study 2 is a quasi-experiment in which the story summaries created by students who heard one of…

A child with a disability is expected to take tests along with his or her non-disabled classmates. The child may receive accommodations or modifications, if needed. Some children may take alternate assessments. Some may take tests that measure progress in alternate standards. Your child must recall facts quickly and correctly to do well on tests.…

The effects of different approaches to learning Chinese characters were investigated. Ninety-two high-school students were randomly assigned to one of five treatment groups: translation, verbal mnemonics, visual mnemonics, dual coding mnemonics, or self-generated mnemonics. All groups received instruction and completed posttests in a…

This paper concerns three two-stage experiments the aim of which was to find out whether enactment- and mime-based (E&M) instruction--a key element both of the method known as Total Physical Response and of some less codified instruction at primary level--can be employed in order to help learners: (1) better acquire English manner-of-movement…