Background and Aims: Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) benefit from word learning procedures that include a mix of immediate retrieval and spaced retrieval trials. In this study, we examine the relative contribution of these two types of retrieval. Methods: We examine data from Haebig et al. (2019) in their study that compared an…

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…

Purpose: Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) often have difficulty with word learning. Recent studies have shown that incorporating retrieval practice provides a significant benefit to this learning. However, we have not yet discovered the best balance between the amount of retrieval and the amount of study (hearing the word in the…

Purpose: There are strong retention benefits when learners frequently test themselves during the learning period. This practice of repeated retrieval has recently been applied successfully to children's word learning. In this study, we apply a repeated retrieval procedure to the learning of novel adjectives by preschool-age children with…

The episodic context account of retrieval-based learning proposes that retrieval enhances subsequent retention because people must think back to and reinstate a prior learning context. Three experiments directly tested this central assumption of the context account. Subjects studied word lists and then either restudied the words under intentional…

The elaborative retrieval account of retrieval-based learning proposes that retrieval enhances retention because the retrieval process produces the generation of semantic mediators that link cues to target information. We tested 2 assumptions that form the basis of this account: that semantic mediators are more likely to be generated during…

Purpose: Recent behavioral studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of implementing retrieval practice into learning tasks for children. Such approaches have revealed that repeated spaced retrieval (RSR) is particularly effective in promoting children's learning of word form and meaning information. This study further examines how retrieval…

Repeated retrieval practice is a powerful learning tool for promoting long-term retention, but students use this tool ineffectively when regulating their learning. The current experiments evaluated the efficacy of a minimal intervention aimed at improving students' self-regulated use of repeated retrieval practice. Across 2 experiments, students…

Concept mapping has become a popular learning tool. However, the processes underlying the task are poorly understood. In the present study, we examined the effect of creating a concept map on the processing of item-specific information. In 2 experiments, subjects learned categorized or ad hoc word lists by making pleasantness ratings, sorting…

We tested the predictions of 2 explanations for retrieval-based learning; while the elaborative retrieval hypothesis assumes that the retrieval of studied information promotes the generation of semantically related information, which aids in later retrieval (Carpenter, 2009), the episodic context account proposed by Karpicke, Lehman, and Aue (in…

Learning is often identified with the acquisition and encoding of new information. Reading a textbook, listening to a lecture, participating in a hands-on classroom activity, and studying a list of words in a laboratory experiment are all clear examples of learning events. Tests, on the other hand, are used to assess what was learned in a prior…

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…

Many experiments provide evidence that practicing retrieval benefits retention relative to conditions of no retrieval practice. Nearly all prior research has employed retrieval practice requiring overt responses, but a few experiments have shown that covert retrieval also produces retention advantages relative to control conditions. However,…

Students typically create concept maps while they view the material they are trying to learn. In these circumstances, concept mapping serves as an elaborative study activity--students are not required to retrieve the material they are learning. In 2 experiments, we examined the effectiveness of concept mapping when it is used as a retrieval…

A series of four experiments examined the effects of generation vs. retrieval practice on subsequent retention. Subjects were first exposed to a list of target words. Then the subjects were shown the targets again intact for Read trials or they were shown fragments of the targets. Subjects in Generate conditions were told to complete the fragments…