The Yerkes-Dodson law is used frequently in performance settings. It has been applied to everything from work productivity to sports performance and the impact of anxiety on learning. But how did this research finding become a “law”? And how well has this been replicated?
In a previous blog post about retrieval practice, Cindy asked, is asking questions in class enough? She covered an experiment by Magdalena Abel and Henry Roediger (1) in which students studied Swahili vocabulary in a few different conditions. In one of those conditions, students graded …
Rapid technological advancement in the 21st century has influenced many sectors, including education. With over 100 million users, the new Artificial Intelligence tool ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) has gained significant popularity among students, teachers and researchers since its’ release in November 2022…
Self-regulated learning is particularly important in contexts like medical school where learners have to efficiently and independently learn large amounts of information. A recent study with medical students examined the effects of teaching about self-regulated learning and maintaining a learning diary on students’ self-regulated learning and course performance (2)
Think about the last time you had to solve a challenging math problem. Perhaps you felt overwhelmed and didn’t know where to start. We know that there is substantial evidence suggesting that students should learn things like facts and foreign languages by practice testing themselves…
The research study I’m reviewing today tackles the issue of effectiveness vs. efficiency. In this series of studies, participants either received retrieval practice that was experimenter-controlled or the way that they wanted, which was typically to drop questions. Which one is better?
