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Learners can study foreign language-English vocabulary (e.g., denken – to think) both receptively and productively. Receptive learning involves being cued with a foreign language word (e.g., denken) and trying to translate it (i.e., to think). Productive learning involves being cued with an English word (e.g., to think) and trying to produce the translation. When students use retrieval practice to learn foreign-language translations in one direction (e.g., receptively) until they correctly recall the translation, do they demonstrate transfer in the other direction (i.e., productively)? Across three experiments, we answered this question by manipulating the order of learning schedule (reception first followed by production or vice versa). For a given schedule, participants continued to practice retrieving translations (with feedback) using the dropout method until they correctly recalled each translation three times; they then proceeded to practice the pairs in the opposite direction until they correctly recalled each translation three times. Across all experiments, transfer was partial (learning in one direction did not entirely eliminate the need to practice in the other), but transfer did occur regardless of which schedule students used first during practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When study is spaced across sessions (versus massed within a single session), final performance is greater after spacing. This spacing effect may have multiple causes, and according to the mediator hypothesis, part of the effect can be explained by the use of mediator-based strategies. This hypothesis proposes that when study is spaced across sessions, rather than massed within a session, more mediators will be generated that are longer lasting and hence more mediators will be available to support criterion recall. In two experiments, participants were randomly assigned to study paired associates using either a spaced or massed schedule. They reported strategy use for each item during study trials and during the final test. Consistent with the mediator hypothesis, participants who had spaced (as compared to massed) practice reported using more mediators on the final test. This use of effective mediators also statistically accounted for some – but not all of – the spacing effect on final performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study behaviours of students can be assessed from several perspectives, such as what study strategies are used, the total number of hours of study, and the distribution of studying over time. Here, we present the results of a survey study that considered each of these perspectives by asking students to report the what, how much, and when of their study behaviours over the course of a semester. As important, to better understand students’ use of study strategies, we also had students report at the beginning of the semester how they intended to study and their beliefs about the effectiveness of a variety of common strategies. Our results indicate that during the semester, students rely on relatively ineffective strategies and mass their studying the day or two before an exam. However, students intended to begin studying earlier and to use a mix of effective and ineffective study habits. Despite their use of some ineffective strategies, they did have a relatively accurate assessment of which strategies were less versus more effective. Taken together, our results suggest that students have some excellent intentions but may falter because massing study the evening before an exam limits their use of more effective study strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When learning items that vary in reward, students improve their scores (i.e., earned reward) with task experience. In four experiments, we examined whether such improvements arise from better selective encoding of items that would earn more (vs. less) reward. Participants studied and recalled words across multiple study-test trials. On each trial, 12 words were slated with different values (typically from 1 to 12), and participants earned the point value assigned to a given word if it was correctly recalled. In all experiments, participants earned more points across the first two trials. In Experiment 1, participants either self-paced their study or had experimenter-paced study and in Experiment 2, some participants were penalised for each second spent during study. Improvements in points earned were related to increases in overall recall but not to selective encoding. In Experiment 3, some participants were given value-emphasised instructions, yet they did not demonstrate selective encoding. In Experiment 4, we used a larger range of point values, but selective encoding still did not account for the improvement in point scores across lists. These results suggest that metacognitively-driven selective encoding is not necessary to observe improvements in value-based learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]