The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of three schedules of practice on high-level violinists' learning. The contextual interference (CI) effect occurs when two or more tasks are practiced in an interleaved manner, which has been shown to impair initial learning but improve retention. How a musician alternates between tasks…

Four experiments investigated the mnemonic effects of generating survival situations. People were given target words and asked to generate survival situations involving that stimulus (e.g., DOOR: "I'm in a house that's on fire, and I can escape through the door"). No constraints were placed on the generation process, other than that it…

The influence of class size and course length on student academic achievement has been evaluated. However, most of the studies have been done at the primary education level and their influence on study strategies has not previously been assessed. The data for this study were collected via surveys at the beginning and end of a first year medical…

In response to both nationwide calls for reform and a perception that the existing chemistry curriculum was not meeting the needs of life science students, faculty in the department of chemistry at Purdue created a redesigned chemistry course sequence specifically aimed at preparing biology majors. The new sequence, called the 1-2-1 curriculum,…

Reading Recovery is a first-grade literacy intervention program with notable short-term benefits, but there are sustainability studies that highlight inconclusive evidence of its enduring success. It was unclear if formerly enrolled Reading Recovery students continue to have long-term literacy skill retention after exiting the literacy…

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…

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…

In two experiments, we examined the effects of text messaging during lecture on comprehension of lecture material. Students (in Experiment 1) and randomly assigned participants (in Experiment 2) in a text message condition texted a prescribed conversation while listening to a brief lecture. Students and participants in the no-text condition…

Retrieval practice is a powerful way to promote long-term retention and meaningful learning. However, students do not frequently practice retrieval on their own, and when they do, they have difficulty evaluating the correctness of their responses and making effective study choices. To address these problems, we have developed a guided retrieval…

THE EFFECTS OF FOUR VARIABLES ON THE EXTENT OF COMPREHENSION OF COMPRESSED SPEECH BY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN WERE INVESTIGATED. THESE VARIABLES WERE RATE OF PRESENTATION, GRADE LEVEL IN SCHOOL, INTELLIGENCE, AND AMOUNT OF PRACTICE. NINETY SUBJECTS PARTICIPATED IN THE EXPERIMENT. THE TASK FOR EACH SUBJECT WAS TO LISTEN INDIVIDUALLY TO 50 TAPE…

STUDENTS WERE PRESENTED 61 LESSONS BY MEANS OF SEMIAUTOMATIC TEACHING MACHINES. LESSONS WERE ARRANGED SO THAT EACH PARTICIPATING STUDENT STUDIED PART OF THE COURSE MATERIAL WITH A SINGLE REPETITION AND PART WITHOUT REPETITION. DATA WERE OBTAINED FROM TWO TESTS SHOWING TEACHING-MACHINE RESULTS AND ONE FINAL COURSE EXAMINATION. NO SIGNIFICANT…

The author wrote this dissertation on the effects of mentoring intervention on student retention in community colleges in May 2002. The goal of the longitudinal study was to inspect the effects of a mentoring intervention program on retention and grade point averages of students at a two-year community college. The data used in the study came from…

A STUDY OF SELECTION AND RETENTION OF CANDIDATES FOR ELEMENTARY TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAMS WAS DESIGNED TO TEST AND IMPROVE THE SELECTION OF TEACHER CANDIDATES. THE 8-YEAR, CROSS SECTIONAL, LONGITUDINAL STUDY INVOLVED THREE MATCHED GROUPS (N-802) OF MATRICULATED FRESHMEN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION MAJORS DURING THE 1957-60 PERIOD. SCORES ON 11…