Ask around any classroom, and you’ll undoubtedly find students who rely on rereading notes or cramming the night before an exam. While these strategies feel relatively easy and are perceived as effective, they produce poor long-term retention.
Research consistently shows that Retrieval Practice and Distributed Practice, also known as Spacing, outperform other passive forms of studying. However, students rarely use these strategies independently.
Recent research explored what happens when students are explicitly taught about these strategies, not only the ‘what’ and ‘how’, but the ‘why’.
In this blog we will explore:
What are Desirable Difficulties?
The concept of “Desirable Difficulties” was first introduced by psychologists Elizabeth and Robert Bjork in the 1990s. They suggested that more difficult learning with specific challenges could significantly enhance long-term retention and understanding, therefore making learning more ‘durable’.
Initially, Desirable Difficulties may lead to frustration due to a reduction in performance. However, research shows they play a crucial role in promoting deeper understanding, active engagement and long-term retention. Easy learning may lead to better short-term performance and therefore the ‘illusion of learning’ but it’s the difficult learning that consolidates knowledge for the long run.
So, what are the most effective forms of Desirable Difficulties?
1. Retrieval Practice
Research consistently demonstrates the long-term benefits of Retrieval Practice. This method requires students to generate an answer to a question. In the process of generating this answer, they strengthen the links to their knowledge by bringing information out of storage.
Retrieval Practice requires active recall, which explains why it’s so effortful and difficult, but this is essential for long-term retention. It might feel difficult in the moment, but this practice makes recalling later on much easier and makes the pathways to their learning more accessible.
2. Spacing/Distributed Practice
Students forget a lot more information a lot faster than we think. But not all is doom and gloom – there is a learning strategy that counteracts this and helps with long-term retention. Spacing relies on revisiting information multiple times over a long period of time. Research does indeed support the well-known adage ‘little and often’. Instead of cramming, which is intense and prolonged studying in a short time frame, research has shown that using Spacing can result in a 10% – 30% difference in final test results.
What does the research say?
So, the issue doesn’t lie in the fact that effective learning strategies don’t exist. The issue lies in the awareness and application of these strategies.
A recent study aimed to look at the effectiveness of Retrieval Practice and Spacing by implementing a three-component intervention to foster students’ independent engagement with these strategies. They used students from a university sports nutrition course and compared their performance on exams compared to students who didn’t receive the intervention.
Let’s dive in and see what they did…
The three-component intervention
Importantly, this study promoted student engagement with these Desirable Difficulties by clearly explaining the underlying scientific evidence and why they are advantageous. In the first step of the intervention, participants received instruction about the advantages of Retrieval and Distributed Practices.
After, they received encouragement to apply these strategies independently. Finally, they used ten pop quizzes to enable Retrieval Practice and foster Spacing. These quizzes were placed deliberately at unpredictable intervals and corresponded to the concepts the teacher had taught 2-5 days prior.
What did they find?
On each of the four exams, those who were trained in using Desirable Difficulties outperformed those who were not – a huge indication of the benefits of Retrieval Practice and Spacing.
This study joins a wealth of previous research to highlight the benefits of Distributed and Retrieval Practice to learning and course performance.
Not only did it improve exam performance, but the pop/retrieval quiz scores were indicative of later performance, showing retrieval activities might be useful as formative opportunities to identify gaps and predict your students’ future performance.
So, how can you relate these findings to your classroom?
Desirable Difficulties in the classroom
The combination of both Retrieval Practice and Spacing is called Successive Relearning – which includes Spacing out the use of Retrieval Practice techniques on several occasions over time. Here are some practical ways you can encourage your students to implement this in their independent learning.
1. Use low-stakes quizzes
Frequent short quizzes can promote Retrieval Practice without the need for high pressure. This means that students can focus on learning and committing knowledge to memory as opposed to just ‘studying for the exam’. The process of recalling information in a less stressful context strengthens the links in knowledge in their brain, meaning when the time comes to sit their exam, the pathways to this information are a lot easier to access.
2. Spaced retrieval opportunities
Combining these two well-established learning strategies via Successive Relearning could be the recipe for success. In practice, it looks like practicing a task until you are successful, then practising it again over spaced sessions until you succeed again at each opportunity. It makes knowledge more likely to ‘stick’ well beyond the checkpoint of an exam and means that this information can be stored for future use and application.
3. Teach students about effective learning strategies
Students are more likely to use Retrieval Practice and Spacing if they understand why they work. Instead of just explaining the ‘what’, telling them about the mechanisms behind these strategies, and making them aware of the counterintuitive nature of learning is important for engagement. It is easy to get demotivated and fall into old habits when engaging in Desirable Difficulties, however by understanding how and why they work, students are more likely to buy-in and stick out the challenges.
Final Thoughts
It goes without saying that Desirable Difficulties are, indeed, difficult. However, when students understand why these challenges benefit their learning, they are more likely to engage with them rather than avoid them. By explaining how strategies like Retrieval Practice and Spacing strengthen memory and improve long-term retention, we can help students move away from last-minute cramming and towards more effective, evidence-informed study habits. Teaching students about the science of learning encourages them to adopt strategies that feel challenging in the moment but ultimately lead to stronger, more durable learning.
