Successive Relearning

Successive relearning combines two highly effective study strategies. what are these strategies?

Retrieval practice and spaced practice

Definition of successive relearning

retrieval practice to some level of mastery over multiple spaced sessions

Mastery

must answer question correctly. If not, corrective feedback is provided and question is answered again later in same session

Criterion level

number of times a given question needs to be answered correctly to achieve mastery

Trials-to-criterion

the number of attempts to answer a question to criterion level

Dropout method

once question has been answered to criterion level, it is dropped from further study within the learning session

Successive relearning protects against……

Forgetting -  

Takes longer following each relearning session to drop to 80% retention

With each successive relearning event….

• it takes less time and/or recital attempts to achieve mastery

• Suggests that forgotten memories aren’t gone, but temporary inaccessible

What makes these temporary inaccessible memories accessible again?

relearning

Savings score definition

the amount of time or relearning attempts 'saved' from having previous learning the items

Savings score formula

(time to mastery for first learning) - (time to mastery for relearning) / (time to mastery for first learning) X 100

What could you alternatively measure savings score with?

trials instead of time

Rawson et al (2018) method

• 48 lithuanian-english word pairs

• One initial study trial per item

Rawson et al (2018) more of method

• Relearning with dropout and mastery (varied criterion level - one condition they had to be correct once in another condition they had to be correct 3 times)

• Corrective feedback following errors

• 4 further relearning sessions each separated by one week

Rawson et al (2018) results

1 week after 4th relearning: 50% retention

3 weeks after 4th relearning: 77% retention

Rawson et al (2018) confounding variables

relearning time is inherently variable between participants, relearning time is variable as criterion level is varied and relearning time is variable as within-session lag between repetitions is varied

Higham et al (2022). Following each weekly lecture on intruductoring psychology, students logged on…

• to answer 20 fill-in-the-blank (cued-recall) questions or restudy 20 statements about lecture material

• Three practice sessions per week

• Criterion level = 1

• Spacing gap of 2 days

Higham et al (2022) What did the practice include?

mastery learning with feedback and dropout method. Had metacognitive measure at end of each session: participants predicted how well they would be able to answer exam questions

Higham et al (2022) included questionnaires on ________________________________________________ . What did the students have at end of semester? Did they alter if they were doing restudy or relearn throughout the semester?

attention, mastery & anxiety. 2 cumulative cued-recall tests: 42 or 68 days following 1st lecture. They altered the conditions they were in.

Higham et al (2022) after 42 days results

Relearning - 0.52

Restudy- 0.35

New (not practiced) - .20

Higham et al (2022) after 68 days results

 relearn is .53 correct answers, restudy .43, new (not practiced) .30

Higham et al (2022) Results for judgements of learning

In session 1, Higher in restudy condition than in the relearn condition; represents a metacognitive illusion. But by session 3 the JOL was higher for restudy condition than the relearn condition

Higham et al (2022) anxiety

shows same result as JOL

Higham et al (2022) mastery

Relearn condition had higher mastery in session 1 but this had switched by session 3. Low scores means more mastery.

Higham et al (2022) attention

restudy had higher attention by session 3 but in session 1 relearn had higher attention

Rawson et al (2013) method

assigned college students to use successive relearning

Rawson et al (2013) results

Exam performance was more than 10% higher for questions tapping concepts that were practiced using SR than for questions tapping concepts students studied on their own

Rawson & Dunlosky (2011) Method

Students completed one, two, three, four or five relearning sessions , seperated by a few days. A month after completed retention test, involved retrieving the meaning of the concepts

Rawson & Dunlosky (2011) results

less than 2 min of practice was needed to achieve  correct recall in first session and less time required to achieve criterion in subsequent relearning sessions

The more relearning sessions the better they scored on the test but engaging in more than 3 relearning sessions did not add more benefits