Long term retention improves when you generate your own questions and answers rather than getting presented with them. The Generation Effect also explains why reading/highlighting are not very effective compared to generating new materials.

Generation Effect

Interleaving refers to studying different concepts in a single period of time. Although it may seem more difficult at the time of studying, interleaving information during study time improves long term retention of the materials. 

Example: When studying for a cumulative final, it may seem easy to study a single chapter each day leading up to the exam. However, for long term retention, you should study parts of multiple chapter each day, thus interleaving the topics.

Interleaving Study Materials

Information can become associated with the context and conditions of study sessions. Thus, varying study conditions will improve later recall. To better retain information, it is important to alter aspects of studying.

Examples of variation:

-environment

-duration

-type of study (flashcards, group work, etc.)

Vary Study Conditions

Desirable Difficulties References

The cognitive bases of desirable difficulties: memory and metacognition  

Whether or not students decide to engage in learning processes such as desirable difficulties greatly depends on how motivated they are to do so. This motivation can be influenced by a number of factors, including:
- memory of prior experiences
- task outcome expectancy/value
- achievement goal orientation
- affective state
- consequences on grades
- beliefs of competency 
- how the task is framed

Motivation and desirable difficulties: Variables effecting self-regulatory learning processes

Long-term recall is improved when studying is broken up into many short sessions rather than long concentrated ones (memory consolidation is improved). 

Spacing effect

Studying by practice tests improves encoding into long term memory more than rereading passages (while there is no difference in short term understanding).
- using tests as learning events 
- question asking
- flashcards

Retrieval practice ( testing effect )

A learning task that requires a considerable but desirable amount of effort, thereby improving long-term performance.

Examples:

- Interleaving Materials
- Spacing Studying
- Generation Effect
- Retrieval practice (testing)
- Varying Study Conditions

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

San Jose State University

University of Texas at Austin

- Heuristics and biases
- Desirable difficulty
- Decision time
- Reasoning
- Expected emotions

Focuses of Research on  Decision-Making

How students/people use educational material to learn, often with the goal of doing well on an exam or quiz.

Study habits 

- Cognitive theory of drawing construction
- Learning by conceptual level
- Expectancy-valence theory
- Self-determination Theory (SDT)
- Modes of learning
- Efficacy of Traditional Teaching Methods
- Constructivism
- Engagement
- Learning Analytics (LA)
- Community of Inquiry Framework (CoI)
- Achievement Gap in Education
- Desirable difficulties

Focuses of Learning Science

- Memory models
- Forgetting
- The stages of memory
- Levels of analysis
- Levels of Processing 
- Interference
- Chunking
- Recall
- Constructive nature of memory
- Primary vs. Secondary memories
- Types of information supporting memory
- Memory errors and impairment
- Source monitoring
- Eyewitness testimony
- Experience-dependent plasticity
- Desirable difficulties
- Prospective vs. Retrospective Memory

Focuses of Research on Memory

Wikipedia

Bjork, E. L., & Bjork, R. A. (2011). Making Things Hard on Yourself, But in a Good Way:
Creating Desirable Difficulties to Enhance Learning. Psychology and the Real World, 56-
64.

Making Things Hard on Yourself, But in a Good Way: Creating Desirable Difficulties to Enhance Learning

UCLA Bjork Learning and Forgetting Lab. (n.d.). Research. Applying Cognitive Psychology to Enhance Educational Practice. https://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/research/

Applying Cognitive Psychology to Enhance Educational Practice

Bjork, R. A., & Bjork, E. L. (2020). Desirable difficulties in theory and practice. Journal of Applied research in Memory and Cognition, 9(4), 475-479.

Desirable difficulties in theory and practice

How long it takes someone to make a decision

Decision time

Desirable Difficulties

Assumes people are rational and posits that when people have all of the available information they will act to maximize expected utility.

Expected utility theory

The predictions of what emotions people think they will feel after making some decision. This affects the decision people make.

Expected emotions

Logical reasoning is the process of using a rational, systematic series of steps based on sound certain mathematical procedures and statements to arrive at a conclusion. 

There are three types of the reasoning:
- Abductive Reasoning 
- Deductive Reasoning 
- Inductive Reasoning

Reasoning

Heuristics are mental shortcuts that people rely on to simplify the complex task of forming and maintaining beliefs. Because forming detailed and accurate beliefs requires extensive observation, memory, and analysis, individuals use these efficient cognitive strategies. However, relying on heuristics can sometimes lead to incorrect conclusions.

Heuristics

In general, men and women have differing habits when studying.

Gender and study habits

Blocked studying occurs when an entire time slot is devoted to one concept/ group of information. Blocked studying allows for quicker immediate learning with less long term retention. 

Blocked Studying

Pulling from the Latin roots "*pro*" (meaning forward, forth, in favor of) and "*crastinus*" (of tomorrow), procrastination is an irrational, but voluntary decision to delay an intended behavior or task.
- *Irrationality* is defined as "... choosing course of action[,] despite expecting that it will not maximize your utilities..."
- *Intended* is defined as something that one wants to interact with; the avoidance of random or irrelevant tasks would not be considered procrastination.

Procrastination

One research study published in 2018 looks at how students tend to struggle in STEM courses, especially students of underrepresented minorities (URM). This study focuses on decreasing the achievement gap between URM (Latino, African-American, and Native American students) and non-URM (white and Asian students) groups by implementing interventions that impart studying strategies, such as spacing and self-testing, to see if the students' course grades improve. The reason for this intervention is to teach students who do not know how to study on their own how to do it effectively for STEM courses. 

Study Methods of Students in STEM Courses 

Learning strategies are essentially different methods of studying or various types of study habits. Dunlosky et al. categorized each study habit into one of three utilities based on generalizability and effectiveness (if it really improves learning): high, moderate and low.

Learning Strategies

•	Wrenn Study Habits Inventory

•	The Survey of Study Habits and Attitudes (SSHA)

•	Students Attitudes Inventory (SAI)

•	Learning and Study Strategy Inventory (LASSI)


Study Habits Inventories 

Humans can only learn one or at most two conceptual levels at a time. A person is able to learn the next level of concepts only after they have a stable understanding of the original. From then on, we are able to fine tune our understanding of the lower level concepts, while our learning focus is on the next level of abstraction.

Learning by Conceptual Levels

Readers may translate text into visual information by selecting, organizing and then integrating. Graphical representations such as concept maps, flow diagrams, and tree diagrams can be used to depict the structural and conceptual relationships found in text. By generating diagrams, readers are able to leverage spatial memory to develop a coherent understanding of the text.

Cognitive Theory of Drawing Construction

People behave based on the value that they perceive doing the behavior has to them. It takes into account expectancy (effort), instrumentality (performance) and valence (value/reward).

Expectancy-Valence Theories

Analyzes the effectiveness of passive teaching styles (i.e. lecturing or exams) on student learning. 

Efficacy of Traditional Teaching Methods

A theory of human motivation that posits that the reasons why an individual chooses to participate and exerts effort, are based on self-determined regulations (such as intrinsic motivation). It states there are 3 desires that promote optimal function and growth:
- 1) Autonomy
- 2) Competence
- 3) Relatedness

Self-determination theory (SDT)

The measure and study of sustained interaction with the medium. Engagement is different from Motivation in that it focuses on the user's willingness to continue interacting, rather than what inspires or spurs them into action.

Engagement

Learning analytics (LA) is the idea that datasets acquired through teaching or learning activities can be used to enhance student learning, academic progress, and teaching practices.

Learning Analytics

- MOOCs (massive open online courses)
- Blended Learning
- Online Learning
- Distance Learning
- E-learning

Mode of Education

The intersecting three-presence framework, consisting of Social, Teaching and Cognitive Presences, that represented all the important activities in an educational experience.  

Community of Inquiry Framework

A proposed hierarchy of understanding that can be used to evaluate a student's comprehension of a topic. From the highest level to the lowest level of understanding, they are:
- Creation / Create
- Evaluation / Evaluate
- Analysis / Analyze
- Application / Apply
- Comprehension / Understand
- Knowledge / Remember


Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning

A theory that recognizes the learners' understanding and knowledge based on their own experiences prior to entering school. Rather than simply taking in knowledge, learners take the opportunity to reinforce and build their own understanding of the topic, derived from what they already know and what is being presented to them.

Constructivism (in Education)

The achievement gap is a persistent disparity in academic outcomes, such as grades, test scores, and graduation rates, observed among students from different demographic groups. These groups are often defined by ethnicity, race, and, in certain subjects, gender.

Definition of the Achievement Gap in Education

Forgetting is defined as the loss of information from long-term memory. This is a universal human experience, manifesting in everyday situations like forgetting a name, a birthday, or the location of personal items like car keys. Such memory failures, while common, can be a source of frustration and embarrassment, underscoring the fragile nature of human memory.

Forgetting

- 1) Chemical processes
- 2) Neurons activated
- 3) Brain storage
- 4) Storage activated
- 5) Memory
- 6) Output

Levels of output for memory

A central question within the realm of memory research is whether retaining information over short periods of time versus longer periods of time (whether minutes or weeks) is different. In 1890, William James distinguished “primary memory,” composed of past experiences that are active within consciousness, from “secondary memory,” composed of experiences that are not stored at the conscious level but can be recalled. James believed there to be limits to how much information is available in primary memory. Research has generally demonstrated that 7 ± 2 items can be stored at once in a person’s mind, but also that “recoding” items using past knowledge (for example, breaking longer strings into smaller recognizable pieces) can increase memory capacity.

Primary vs. Secondary Memories

While the implicit/explicit, semantic/episodic, and familiarity/recollection distinctions are founded partly on subjective experience, other researchers have instead explored what types of information promote learning retention.

Distinction Between Types of Information Supporting Memory

After being exposed to a stimuli, subjects are asked to report back what they observed.

Recall

Small units (i.e. words, actions) can be grouped together based on associations to form larger units that are easy to remember.

Chunking

Memory depends on the depth of processing information (how much meaning) that occurs. 

Levels of Processing theory

- The Modal Model
- Baddeley & Hitch's Working Memory Model

Memory models

Among many theories, there is consensus surrounding the understanding that medial temporal lobe damage only harms certain types of memory and learning, leaving repetition priming, classical conditioning, and reinforcement-learning largely untouched. Many models also agree about organization of the medial temporal lobe.

Consensus About the Medial Temporal Lobe Among Memory Theories

The process of trying to find the origins of a memory, belief, or knowledge. For example you may be trying to determine whether it was from a friend, a book, or news story.

Source monitoring

It is the mechanism through which the structure of the brain is "shaped" by environments to better perceive environments.

Experience-dependent plasticity 

- Brain damage
- Evolution (errors seen in the general population)

Causes of memory errors and impairment

In neutral emotional circumstances, confidence in the memory and accuracy have a positive relationship. However, in an angry emotional state, the confidence-accuracy relationship becomes negative (as people become more confident, it is predicted that their accuracy will decrease).

The Confidence-accuracy relationship

Prospective memory is the term for the type of memory associated with forward-thinking, initiation of planned events, & retention. Retrospective memory is attributed to one's ability to recall experiences and their contexts (i.e. episodic) in hindsight. It most critically plays a role in remembering events or ideas from the past.

Prospective vs. Retrospective Memory

Memories are a reconstructive process, meaning they are not some recordings of past experiences, but a recreation influenced by the present. They comprised of what happened in events and prior knowledge, expectations, and experiences. This contrasts with what some may think about memories being solely representations of events.

Constructive Nature of Memory

- Proactive interference
- Retroactive interference

Types of Memory Interference

Despite the known fragility of human memory, the legal system, including police, prosecutors, and courts, often depends heavily on eyewitness testimony for criminal prosecutions. This reliance is problematic because memory is a reconstructive process, making eyewitness accounts susceptible to errors that can lead to faulty identifications and, ultimately, wrongful convictions.

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