Poster #240 - Repetition and Spacing Effects in Vocabulary Learning from Educational Media

• In Event: 1-169 - Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Section - Technology, Media & Child Development

Integrative Statement

The spacing effect – the finding that individuals remember more information presented in a distributed, spaced manner than a massed presentation – has been observed in a variety of settings – from experimental stimuli spaced apart by seconds (e.g. Vlach, Sandhofer, & Kornell, 2008) to live lessons spaced a day apart (e.g. Gluckman, Vlach, & Sandhofer, 2014). However, other work suggests that learning that is less intentional might not show such spacing benefits (Toppino et al., 2009). Educational media is a solid platform for vocabulary learning (e.g. Takacs, Swart, & Bus, 2015), but is more of an incidental than intentional learning environment. Little work has investigated how repetition and spacing impact vocabulary learning from educational media, prompting the present investigation. We hypothesized that children would benefit from repeated viewing over a single exposure, and benefit the most from a spaced presentation.

Four-year-old children (M = 54.2 months, SD = 3.5 months) from low-income households (48% female) were randomly assigned to one of three groups: single view (n = 44), massed repetition (n = 46) and spaced repetition (n = 41). Scores on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-IV) averaged 81.53 (SD = 14.91), over one standard deviation below the population mean. Participants viewed one educational media clip with three embedded target vocabulary words in their respective condition. Children in the single view condition viewed the clip once, the massed repetition children viewed the clip three times in immediate succession, and children in the spaced repetition condition viewed the clip three times, with each view spaced 1 hour apart. All children completed a pretest and PPVT prior to participation, and were post-tested on target word understanding twice – immediately following the final view of the clip, and 7 days later. Post-tests assessed three levels of learning – receptive labeling (e.g. “Point to the lungs”), expressive naming [e.g. What is this part of the body called?], and auditory label-definition understanding (e.g. What do lungs help us do? Breathe? or Buy Toys?).

Repeated Measures ANCOVAS with the within-subjects factor of posttest timing (2: immediate, delayed), the between-subjects factors of PPVT median split (2: lower PPVT, higher PPVT) and Age (2: younger, older), and the covariate of pretest scores revealed a significant main effect of repetition condition for receptive, F(2, 118) = 3.69, p = .028 and expressive vocabulary, F(2, 118) = 3.70, p = .028. For receptive vocabulary, spaced surpassed single view, while massed fell in the middle and did not significantly differ from either. For expressive vocabulary, spaced surpassed both other conditions. In terms of retention of information from the immediate to the delayed posttest, one significant interaction with repetition condition emerged for auditory definitional questions, F(2, 118) = 4.48, p = .013, such that children maintained their post-test scores for one week in both repetition conditions, while performance declined from immediate to delayed posttest in the single view condition. Overall, this study suggests that young children can benefit from repetition, and particularly spaced repetition when learning vocabulary incidentally from educational media.

Authors

• Preeti Ganesh Samudra, New York University
  Presenting Author

• Kevin M Wong, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Susan Neuman, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author