Poster #33 - Retrieval Difficulty Promotes STEM Categorization and Generalization

• In Event: 3-159 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Section - Cognitive Process

Integrative Statement

A long history of research has revealed that variation in the timing of learning influences categorization and generalization. A key finding from this work is that presenting category exemplars at the same time (simultaneous schedule) and presenting category exemplars apart in time (spaced schedule) have been shown to facilitate children’s generalization. However, these results present a paradox: How can presenting exemplars at the same time and apart in time both promote generalization? In this study, we resolved these seemingly paradoxical results by examining simultaneous, massed, and spaced schedules in children’s categorization of science, technology, engineering, and mathematic (STEM) concepts. In particular, we hypothesized that these schedules would engender different visual attention and memory retrieval processes, and thus lead to differences in performance across time.
In Experiment 1, preschool children (N = 158, M = 50.77 months) were presented with science concepts on simultaneous, massed, or spaced presentation schedules, and were tested immediately or after a 5-minute delay to determine which schedule best supported generalization. At the immediate test, there were no performance differences. However, at the delayed test, the spaced schedule better facilitated science concept generalization compared to the massed and simultaneous schedules (Figure 1). These findings suggest that spaced learning may best promote generalization of science concepts across time.
Additional experiments were conducted to determine the mechanism underlying the observed advantage of spaced learning. In Experiment 2 (N = 70, M = 49.37 months), memory retrieval was assessed by presenting the same science concepts on simultaneous, massed, and spaced schedules as Experiment 1. Children had better retrieval of science information in the simultaneous and massed conditions, and therefore children experienced the most retrieval difficulty in the spaced condition (Figure 2).
In Experiment 3 (N = 46), visual attention was assessed via eye tracking by presenting the same science concepts on the same simultaneous, massed, and spaced schedules as the previous two experiments. Results revealed that children did not display differences in global visual attention across conditions. Thus, differential amounts of visual attention to stimuli are unlikely to be a key mechanism that explains the spacing effect.
Overall, the current research demonstrates that retrieval effort likely contributes to the differences in performance during simultaneous, massed, and spaced learning. Indeed, the results from Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrate the importance of forgetting during conceptual learning (Vlach, 2014), suggesting that the spacing effect is driven by a forgetting mechanism that promotes children’s science concept generalization. Children’s struggle during retrieval may cause forgetting of extraneous information during learning, and thus enables better retrieval for relevant features of science categories. Educational implications of these findings, such as integrating spaced learning into teaching practices, will be discussed at the poster session.

Authors

• Megan Kaul, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  Presenting Author

• Emma Lazaroff, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  Non-Presenting Author

• Haley Vlach, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  Non-Presenting Author