The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning

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The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning

Postby Kraut » Sun May 30, 2021 8:31 pm

The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning

Learning is often considered complete when a student can produce the correct answer to a question. In our research, students in one condition learned foreign language vocabulary words in the standard paradigm of repeated study-test trials. In three other conditions, once a student had correctly produced the vocabulary item, it was repeatedly studied but dropped from further testing, repeatedly tested but dropped from further study, or dropped from both study and test. Repeated studying after learning had no effect on delayed recall, but repeated testing produced a large positive effect. In addition, students' predictions of their performance were uncorrelated with actual performance. The results demonstrate the critical role of retrieval practice in consolidating learning and show that even university students seem unaware of this fact.

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... r_Learning
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Re: The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning

Postby leosmith » Mon May 31, 2021 3:32 am

Recall is important to memory - several studies have confirmed that. That should tell the "passive" anki learners, meaning those who do their cards as quickly as possible and make no attempt to recall the ones they don't know, are studying less efficiently. But some of the statements in this study are over the top imo. Many people have learned languages without the type of testing they are doing, so the implication that nothing is gained without testing is incorrect.

Also, is it just me or did they not tell us what they actually did? Sure, they had students "study" and "test" foreign language word pairs, but how? Anyway, it's an old study (2008), and a description probably exists somewhere, but I don't see why they would leave it out of the write-up.
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Re: The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning

Postby sirgregory » Tue Jun 01, 2021 3:07 am

So what are the best ways to incorporate retrieval in language learning?

I guess doing the exercises in a book would count. Computer-based language programs almost always make you do retrieval. Pimsleur is heavy on retrieval.

Do bilingual texts make you do retrieval? Doesn't really seem like it. Yet that seems to be effective in its own way.

Speaking requires a lot of retrieval. Every sentence you have to try to come up with the words. I wonder if that's why immersion can produce such fast results.
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Re: The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning

Postby Cainntear » Tue Jun 01, 2021 6:35 am

sirgregory wrote:So what are the best ways to incorporate retrieval in language learning?

I guess doing the exercises in a book would count.

Often it doesn't really -- books tend to compartmentalise quite a bit and practice one area of grammar and/or one family or vocabulary in a particular section. This means that you end up with the target language at best recalled once (at the start of the exercise) or perhaps never fully recalled (because you're given a prompt and/or example that contains the target language).

Recall practice needs to be varied or you just end up holding the target language in short-term memory and manipulating it.
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Re: The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning

Postby Kraut » Tue Jun 01, 2021 7:08 am

sirgregory wrote:
Do bilingual texts make you do retrieval? Doesn't really seem like it. Yet that seems to be effective in its own way.



If you do the translation yourself, the reverse translation is a very powerful instrument. If I do linear ministories, Tripadvisor reviews ..., I learn them by heart after translating.
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Re: The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning

Postby Steve » Tue Jun 01, 2021 1:59 pm

Like many papers on learning in the context of education, it seems to define learning as the accurate recall of memorized facts to meet a testing deadline. In this context, it was roughly speaking studying for a vocabulary quiz on 40 words next week with no consideration of long term retention. A followup test on the 40 items after perhaps a couple of months would have been interesting to see.

As far as I can tell, this research consisted of one day of four passes of studying and testing 40 Swahili-English word pairs and a final test one week later on all 40 items. Studying consisted of seeing Swahili-English word pairs and testing consisted of seeing the Swahili word as a prompt for the English word. The students were put into one of four groups, the first studied (S) and tested (T) on all 40 items four times (called S-T). Another group studied all 40 pairs four times and only tested on the ones (N)ot recalled on the previous test (and called S-TN). The other two groups were the other two mixtures of testing and studying all or missed only, SN-T and SN-TN. The two groups which tested all 40 pairs for the four passes (S-T, SN-T) averaged about 80% recall (if I am reading the graph correctly) after a week and the groups which only tested missed items (S-TN, SN-TN) averaged about 30% to 35%.

A couple observations. The first is that I couldn't find the number of students in this study. Maybe I just missed that somewhere. Second, it's unclear how recall was done as to whether it was picking from a list of English words or typing in the word. Again, maybe I missed that somewhere.

The third is that the final skill being evaluated is the testing on 40 items. The two groups which practiced that skill of testing on all 40 items four times (S-T and SN-T) did much better than the two groups which tested on all 40 items only one time (S-TN and SN-TN). The authors summed the number of times the items were either studied or tested for a total number of exposures to each word pair in their table and analysis. Using their averages for testing only (and rounding to the nearest numbers), here's a rough estimate of how much testing was done for the TN groups. About 12 items were tested once, 16 tested twice, 12 tested thrice, and 3 tested 4 times. This is a total of about 90 test exposures for the TN groups compared to 160 test exposures for the T groups. The T groups got to practice the final skill almost twice as much as the TN groups. In other words, the final evaluation was based on retrieval of words and the two groups that practiced retrieval almost twice as much as the other two groups did better at it.

I'm not sure this study really showed much beyond that actively quizzing yourself (in the manner you will be evaluated on) to prepare for next week's vocabulary quiz is better than passively looking at complete word pairs. Without a follow up several weeks or months later, it's not clear how much better or more efficient this approach is than other methods for long term learning. I'm not sure this study really did anything more than suggest a better method for cramming for a vocabulary quiz.

My sense of things is that language learning is about developing multiple paths of retrieval for each word rather than a single path of retrieval. I'm not sure I'm using the word retrieval technically correctly, but it seems that developing many more connections in our brain where we encounter a particular word in various sentences and contexts in various modes (e.g. reading or listening or writing) does more for developing actual skills than repeatedly seeing a word in one context (e.g. sitting at a computer and typing in the correct English word in response to one in a different language). I can see the one context only approach being optimal use of time for passing quizzes or exams in a course (or in self-imposed testing to meet goals). However, in real language use, the "testing" is appropriately reacting to or producing a word in the various contexts and modes it will occur in. I'm not sure there is any other way to become good at that than using a number of methods which expose our brain to a word in various contexts and modes.
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Re: The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning

Postby leosmith » Wed Jun 02, 2021 12:33 am

Steve wrote:As far as I can tell, this research consisted of one day of four passes of studying and testing 40 Swahili-English word pairs and a final test one week later on all 40 items. Studying consisted of seeing Swahili-English word pairs and testing consisted of seeing the Swahili word as a prompt for the English word. The students were put into one of four groups, the first studied (S) and tested (T) on all 40 items four times (called S-T). Another group studied all 40 pairs four times and only tested on the ones (N)ot recalled on the previous test (and called S-TN). The other two groups were the other two mixtures of testing and studying all or missed only, SN-T and SN-TN. The two groups which tested all 40 pairs for the four passes (S-T, SN-T) averaged about 80% recall (if I am reading the graph correctly) after a week and the groups which only tested missed items (S-TN, SN-TN) averaged about 30% to 35%.

Wow, you got a lot more out of reading that than I did! Given that, I'm not sure how a learner could use the results of this paper to help them study more effectively. Imo, to a certain extent, retrieval occurs in all four basic skills - reading, writing, conversing and listening. I don't feel that this study has determined we should test ourselves with flashcards.
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Re: The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning

Postby Cainntear » Thu Jun 03, 2021 8:44 am

Steve wrote:My sense of things is that language learning is about developing multiple paths of retrieval for each word rather than a single path of retrieval. I'm not sure I'm using the word retrieval technically correctly, but it seems that developing many more connections in our brain where we encounter a particular word in various sentences and contexts in various modes (e.g. reading or listening or writing) does more for developing actual skills than repeatedly seeing a word in one context (e.g. sitting at a computer and typing in the correct English word in response to one in a different language). I can see the one context only approach being optimal use of time for passing quizzes or exams in a course (or in self-imposed testing to meet goals). However, in real language use, the "testing" is appropriately reacting to or producing a word in the various contexts and modes it will occur in. I'm not sure there is any other way to become good at that than using a number of methods which expose our brain to a word in various contexts and modes.

"Retrieval" is usually used in contrast to "recognition", and in a language setting, "retrieval" is essentially speaking and writing tasks where you're not presented with the target language that you need immediately before saying/writing it, and "recognition" is any reading or listening work.

I agree that in the long-term a mix of both is definitely needed, but we're still in the situation where a heck of a lot of teachers believe the Krashenite dogma that understanding comes before production, and that production that comes before understanding is some kind of party trick, and not real language production.

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.
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Re: The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning

Postby Beli Tsar » Thu Jun 03, 2021 10:22 am

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?

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'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.

In other words, the result of the study mentioned by the OP isn't unusual at all; and 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. it demonstrates why SRS, as well as other effective methods, work, as well as why really passive methods don't work, for instance just reading and re-reading a textbook without doing exercises.

----edited to improve clarity----
Last edited by Beli Tsar on Fri Jun 04, 2021 9:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning

Postby leosmith » Thu Jun 03, 2021 5:09 pm

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.
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