Room 3 · Hall of Methods
Retrieval practice and spaced repetition
Strong evidence
These are the two techniques with the strongest evidence in learning research, and the least glamorous names. Use them for anything you want to keep: a language, an exam, a speech.
Retrieval: test yourself
Rereading feels productive and does little. Pulling information out of your memory, with nothing in front of you, is what makes it stay. Photographic Memory describes a simple way to do it:
“Take a blank sheet of paper and simply go from your memory. Then, you can compare that to your original writing.”
Spacing: come back later
Don’t repeat everything today. Test yourself again in a couple of days, then in a week, then in a month. If you still remember, make the gap longer. If you have started to forget, shorten it.
What research says
A major 2013 review compared ten popular study techniques. Only two earned the highest rating: practice testing and distributed practice, which are retrieval and spacing. Rereading, highlighting and summarising were rated low (Dunlosky and colleagues, 2013).
Practise it
Every tool on this site is a form of retrieval practice. Come back to the Memory Test next week and compare your score.
Sources (1)
- Dunlosky J, Rawson KA, Marsh EJ, Nathan MJ, Willingham DT (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest 14(1):4–58. doi:10.1177/1529100612453266