Cramming is not beneficial to long term retention. Rather, the spacing effect has shown that it is helpful to study in smaller sessions throughout a long period of time.

Spacing Effect in Learning

The spacing effect has been shown to improve long-term recall in a variety of domains such as: 
- Conditioning (even in non-human animals)
- Verbal learning
- Motor learning
- Learning educational material

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

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

Carew, T. J., Pinsker, H. M., & Kandel, E. R. (1972). Long-term habituation of a defensive withdrawal reflex in Aplysia. Science, 175(4020), 451-454.

Long-term habituation of a defensive withdrawal reflex in Aplysia

Bahrick, H. P., Bahrick, L. E., Bahrick, A. S., & Bahrick, P. E. (1993). Maintenance of foreign language vocabulary and the spacing effect. Psychological Science, 4(5), 316-321.

Maintenance of foreign language vocabulary and the spacing effect

Shea, J. B., & Morgan, R. L. (1979). Contextual interference effects on the acquisition, retention, and transfer of a motor skill. Journal of Experimental psychology: Human Learning and memory, 5(2), 179.

Contextual interference effects on the acquisition, retention, and transfer of a motor skill

Bjork, R. A. (1979). Information‐processing analysis of college teaching. Educational Psychologist, 14(1), 15-23.

An information-processing analysis of college teaching

- Origins of the spacing effect (early literature)
- Displays of spacing effect in different domains
- Spacing v. Massing

Types of references on the spacing effect

Scope of the spacing effect (different domains)

Spacing has shown to improve long-term recall more than massing by many studies. Some people however (such as E.Z. Rothkopf during in September of 1977), have posited that massing is better mode of studying when dealing with problems of induction. Kornell, N., & Bjork (2008) presented compelling evidence against this claim (spacing is also better for induction).

Effects of Spacing compared to Massing

The two main variables influencing the spacing effect are the spacing interval (lag) and the retention interval (test delay).

Spacing effect variables

A memory strategy where one associates multiple items with each other by using imagery, sentence generation, or other strategies (e.g. dog and spoon).

Mediators

Spacing out study sessions over time rather than cramming in one night has been found to be highly effective, especially in long-term retention of information.

Rated as high utility. It has wide generalization, is easy to implement and has been found to effectively boost academic performance.


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