Instruction meets experience: Using theory- and experience-based methods to promote the use of desirable difficulties

Background

In higher education, students often avoid desirably difficult learning strategies, such as interleaved practice, thereby limiting their learning outcomes.

Aim

We studied why students (under)utilize interleaved practice and whether an intervention that combines theory- and experience-based support can improve their immediate and delayed strategy decisions.

Sample

Higher education students (N = 120) from the Prolific participant pool were recruited.

Methods

They were randomized into four conditions: Theory-based support, experience-based support, full-treatment, and no support. The theory-based support was refutations that challenged students’ erroneous beliefs about learning strategies and warned them about inaccurate monitoring of effort and learning. The experience-based support was metacognitive prompts in the form of visual feedback. This visual prompt showed students the development of their perceived effort and learning across time.

Results

Pre-intervention use of interleaved practice was 18%. Students experienced more effort and low learning, at least initially, when using interleaved practice, although actual learning was enhanced. Full-treatment and refutations increased the use of interleaved practice significantly more compared to the other conditions: From 24% to 88% and from 20% to 70%, respectively. Yet, refutations were the necessary and sufficient condition for this improvement.

Conclusion

Refutations and visual prompts form a strong strategy intervention that improves the self-regulated use of interleaved practice in immediate and delayed-transfer learning tasks. But, refutations are the key ingredient for this improvement.