The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning

General discussion about learning languages
Beli Tsar
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Re: The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning

Postby Beli Tsar » Fri Jun 04, 2021 9:36 am

leosmith wrote:
Beli Tsar wrote:it demonstrates why good SRS works, as well as other good methods of instruction, and why really passive methods - just reading the textbook again and again - are not.
I think your sentence is missing something.

Thanks - it is, or perhaps it's just incomprehensible gibbberish... Thanks for pointing it out. I will edit the original, but what I meant to say was that this kind of evidence about retrieval demonstrates why good methods work, SRS and other effective methods, and why really passive methods are ineffective. As I recall it, just re-reading textbooks is the classic example from non-language studies: compared to anything that asks you to retrieve memories, it's remarkably pointless.
leosmith wrote:But I wanted to ask, is there a study that tests a group that reads/listens for 60 min per day vs a group that reads/listens for 50 min + does SRS for 10 min per day, or something like that? I would be really interested in those results.

I too would love to see a study like this: I'm not aware of any, but then there are so few studies on independent learning anyway. This kind of input boosted by SRS seems to me - via experience, commonsense, extrapolation, etc. - to be optimal, but it would be good to have that tested. It would also be helpful to have a better idea of what constitutes a healthy balance - SRS vs. input - at different learning stages.
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Cainntear
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Re: The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning

Postby Cainntear » Sat Jun 05, 2021 9:41 am

Beli Tsar wrote:
Cainntear wrote:While this study is flawed in the way it tests, in my MSc dissertation I looked into productive vs receptive instruction (i.e. retrieval vs recognition) for beginners, and those who typed out their answers in the instruction got higher scores in recognition tests than those who received instruction through recognition tasks. The learners who had a mix of activities in their lessons got scores that were not quite as high as the ones who only did productive (typing/retrieval) activities.

Obviously you will know the relevant studies far better than I do, Cainntear, but isn't this also supported by a whole range of studies in non-language based learning, and the results from online SRS systems as well? i.e. you did a controlled study that demonstrated firmly what we should expect from other sources? Being forced to retrieve a memory yourself is always better than being prompted, at least in terms of strength of memory?

It was absolutely what I expected, but what surprised me was that a lot of the literature from intermediate learners was suggesting that productive practice developed productive skills and receptive practice developed receptive skills, and that there wasn't much crossover. I'm very dubious about that sort of claim, but I guess that all hangs on what they were actually testing and how. I was teaching absolute beginners, so I wasn't trying to get them to be more fluent or correct in things they'd maybe been taught earlier, but to acquire the vocab and grammar from nothing.

So that, essentially, recall is weakest on totally passive study methods (reading the word a lot); a lot stronger when we have to see it but passively recall it (e.g. recognition cards in Anki); and substantially stronger still for any learning method where we are required to recall it entirely, and especially where that is 'live' recall (e.g. speech)?

I think it's probably more subtle than that. Is passive recall in Anki better than reading a lot? Probably not, because Anki favours memorisation over internalisation.

Here's a little anecdote of something that happened to me while I was studying Gaelic with flashcard software.

I was asked to translate "eye", and I couldn't. Not because I didn't know the word, but my brain froze and didn't know what word I was thinking about. On a conscious level, I knew that it was eye, but my subconscious brain heard the sound and even though the spelling "eye" was right in front of me, my brain couldn't accept that it was definitely "eye" and not "I" or "aye". I couldn't consciously force my subconscious to picture a human eye and disambiguate. It was weird, but it certainly gave me an insight into the limitations of decontextualised practice.

Now if you read a lot and come across the word in reading in context, then recognition is going to require recalling the meaning of the word, while responses to flashcards don't -- they just require a conditioned response to identical stimulus.

But if you mean just reading your list of words -- you're right, that isn't exercise. I gave up reading my word lists in high school French when I realised that I was memorising the list and the only way to recall the word was to go through the list. I might not have realised how bad this was if I hadn't already known a few words of French from childhood holidays. I knew "fraise" and "framboise" from jam and yoghurt flavours, and it struck me as odd that I was finding myself unable to say one without also recalling the other despite having been saying them independently for years.

However, that only works if you actually process the words when you're reading them -- for example, as I often say, people don't generally notice which preposition they're seeing or hearing, just that there's a preposition there, and then their brain interprets it as whatever preposition they expect in that position.
I suspect the levels are something like: nouns & verbs > adjectives > adverbs > prepositions and articles

Items that are on the left are probably more open to learning by exposure, whereas ones on the left will need more conscious study.

I'm sure Duolingo and Memrise have both pointed out how much better people do with typing the answers, and that most of us have experience that demonstrates this too.

But Duolingo have failed to find ways to motivate learners to do this, which is one of the things I resent them for
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Re: The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning

Postby Cainntear » Sat Jun 05, 2021 9:44 am

leosmith wrote:
Beli Tsar wrote:it demonstrates why good SRS works, as well as other good methods of instruction, and why really passive methods - just reading the textbook again and again - are not.

I think your sentence is missing something. But I wanted to ask, is there a study that tests a group that reads/listens for 60 min per day vs a group that reads/listens for 50 min + does SRS for 10 min per day, or something like that? I would be really interested in those results.

Agreed -- there should be more research into how to combine things.

The reason I included two mixed groups in my masters study was because someone brought up a study here years ago into music students, showing that listening to a piece of music after a practice session acted as learning/practice/rehearsal, but listening to that same piece of music before a session had no effect. I was interested to see if I could spot any similar effect for receptive practice vs productive practice, but obviously it wasn't equivalent, because the receptive practice is still conscious activity, not passive like listening to a piece of music.
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Re: The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning

Postby Kraut » Sun Jun 20, 2021 9:36 am

http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/232763/
Using day and night – scheduling retrieval practice and sleep
full text behind paywall
Abstract

Sleep right after studying new material is more conducive to memory than a period of wakefulness. Another way to counteract forgetting is to practice retrieval: taking a test strengthens memory more effectively than restudying the material. The current work aims at investigating the interaction between sleep and testing by asking if testing adds to, neutralizes, or decreases the effect of sleep on memory? We tested this in one pilot and one experiment by manipulating the timing of the practice test as well as whether practice was followed by sleep or wakefulness when learning foreign language vocabulary. Taking a delayed practice test significantly reduces forgetting for both the sleep and the wakefulness group. An immediate practice test, in contrast, had no such effect; here we find the standard beneficial sleep effect. However, the immediate practice test leads to higher recall in the final test in comparison to a delayed practice test, but only for the sleep group. Practical recommendations imply two things: first, if students study in the evening, they should test themselves immediately after learning. Second, if students study during the day the practice test should be delayed in order to reinforce memory and reduce forgetting of the material.
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Re: The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning

Postby luke » Tue Jun 22, 2021 8:06 pm

Kraut wrote:http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/232763/
Using day and night – scheduling retrieval practice and sleep
Abstract
Practical recommendations imply two things: first, if students study in the evening, they should test themselves immediately after learning. Second, if students study during the day the practice test should be delayed in order to reinforce memory and reduce forgetting of the material.


Sounds like "testing oneself" (review/retrieval of some kind) before taking a nap or going to sleep might be better than working on new material immediately before sleep.
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