Applied Cognitive Psychology, Appl. Cognit. Psychol.

25: 763–767 (2011)

Published online 22 September 2010 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/acp.1747

Spacing Effects in Real-World Classroom Vocabulary Learning

HAILEY S. SOBEL1, NICHOLAS J. CEPEDA2* and IRINA V. KAPLER2

1
School/Applied Child Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
2
Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Summary: As a primary goal, educators often strive to maximize the amount of information pupils remember. In the lab,
psychologists have found efficient memory strategies for retaining school-related materials. One such strategy is the spacing effect,
a memory advantage that occurs when learning is distributed across time instead of crammed into a single study session. Spaced
learning is not often explicitly utilized in actual classrooms, perhaps due to a paucity of research in applied settings and with
school-aged children. The current study examined the spacing effect in real-world fifth-grade classrooms. We taught 39 children
unfamiliar English words using both massed and spaced learning. Five weeks later, we tested vocabulary recall. One-week
spacing produced superior long-term retention compared to massed learning. This finding demonstrates that the spacing
effect can be generalized to vocabulary learning in applied settings and middle-school-aged children. Copyright # 2010 John
Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The spacing effect (distributed practice effect; lag effect) gaps between the presentations). The results showed a
refers to a memory advantage that occurs when people learn significant advantage for spaced learning.
material on several separate occasions, instead of a single In studies with older children (fifth and eighth graders:
massed study episode. Numerous studies have demonstrated Cuvo, 1975; third and sixth graders: Toppino & DeMesquita,
spacing benefits for long-term retention of verbal infor- 1984; fourth and eighth graders: Wilson, 1976), word lists
mation, including vocabulary learning (e.g. Bloom & Shuell, were used outside of a meaningful, real-world context. While
1981), memorizing facts (e.g. DeRemer & D’Agostino, use of abstract contexts is common in the spacing literature
1974) and word list learning (e.g. Zechmeister & Shaugh- (Moss, 1995), this usage hardly can be considered education-
nessy, 1980). Spacing effect benefits in verbal learning are ally relevant. Additionally, most of the above studies used very
ubiquitous and well documented (Cepeda, Pashler, Vul, short study interval gaps (e.g. 30 seconds: Vlach, Sandhofer &
Wixted, & Rohrer, 2006) in an adult population. Kornell, 2008) or simply varied the number of intervening
Despite decades of laboratory research on the spacing items in a word list (Cuvo, 1975; Toppino & DeMesquita,
effect and its clear relevance to educational contexts, the 1984; Wilson, 1976). In actual educational settings, there are
majority of spacing effect research has been conducted using likely to be much longer gaps of time between learning
undergraduate students, possibly out of convenience. There presentations, making it difficult to connect real-world
have been only a small number of studies testing children educational practice with the existing literature.
(Cepeda et al., 2006), which leaves open the possibility that While vocabulary learning has been a subject of previous
due to changes in working memory, attention and other spacing studies (e.g. Bahrick & Phelps, 1987; Dempster,
cognitive developmental factors, spacing effect benefits 1987), we have located only a single study that examined
operate differently in child and adult populations. In order to spacing effects for vocabulary learning in a real-world
generalize to grade school populations, it is imperative that educational context. Bloom and Shuell (1981) conducted a
additional studies are conducted with children, particularly study as a part of regular, ongoing classroom activities with
those in elementary- and middle-school grades. high school students enrolled in a French course. The class
Within the existing literature on the spacing effect and was divided into two groups who learned 20 French vocabulary
children, only a few studies have examined word learning. In words for 30 minutes. The spaced group studied for 10 minutes
one example (Childers & Tomasello, 2002), 2.5-year-old on each of three consecutive days, while the massed group
children were taught novel words in either spaced or massed studied the words once for 30 minutes. Learning of vocabulary
conditions. Children produced words more readily if they words through spacing resulted in 35% higher recall 4 days
heard them once per day for 4 days rather than eight times in later. Notably, no one has examined real-world vocabulary
a single day, when tested 1 minute, 1 day or 1 week later. In learning in middle-school children, which is a question we
another study (Vlach, Sandhofer, & Kornell, 2008), 3-year- examine in the current study.
old children were presented with a memory task in which More broadly, few spacing effect studies have been conducted
they learned the names of new toys. A new toy was presented in actual K-12 classrooms. Moss (1995) found that out of 120
either in a massed condition (once for 30 seconds) or in a reviewed studies, only three were conducted in actual K-12
spaced condition (three times for 10 seconds, with 30 second classrooms. Since then, only a few more studies have been
added to this literature (e.g. Carpenter, Pashler, & Cepeda, 2009;
Seabrook, Brown, & Solity, 2005). One study (Seabrook et al.,
2005) examined phonics learning in first-grade children. Items
*Correspondence to: Nicholas J. Cepeda, Department of Psychology, York
University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada. were taught either 2 minute per day for three consecutive days,
E-mail: ncepeda@yorku.ca or in a single 6-minute session. Two weeks later, the spaced-

Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

764 H. S. Sobel et al.

learning group showed better knowledge of letter sounds Design

and better reading ability. Another study (Fishman, Keller, &
Within each class, all children participated in both massed
Atkinson, 1968) implemented spacing in a fifth-grade class-
and spaced conditions. The massed condition consisted of
room using computerized spelling drills. Children learned sets
two consecutive learning sessions separated by less than
of words either through spaced (two sets of words, presented
1 minute, and the 1-week condition consisted of two learning
three times, once every other day) or massed (six sets of words,
sessions separated by 7 days.
one set learned each day, each set presented three times) study.
Recall was tested 10 and 20 days after the final learning
session, and performance was higher in the spaced study
Procedure
condition. Though conducted in a school, this study took
place in a computer laboratory where children performed the Each entire learning episode consisted of five steps that took
task at computer terminals, making it similar to a laboratory in total approximately 15 minutes to complete (including
study. As long as research remains laboratory based, there is distribution/collection of materials, children writing their
not enough information available to support the widespread names, etc.). Formal learning time was 10 minutes, and was
use of the spacing effect in real-world classrooms (Dempster, the same for both experimental conditions. In Step 1, the
1988). booklets were handed out to children, and all four words,
The current study adds to the small literature on whether their definitions and sample use in a sentence were shown to
the spacing effect generalizes to real-world classrooms, children using an overhead projector. Children were instructed
middle-school children and vocabulary learning, using to read the overhead along with the teacher, who read out the
educationally relevant learning episode gaps and retention definitions and sample sentences once. The overhead was then
intervals. Children learned GRE vocabulary words, taught by removed. In Step 2, the children were given 3 minutes to
the regular classroom teacher in a manner that matches complete the first page of the booklet (containing vocabulary
typical classroom instructional technique. Definition recall words only) by writing down the definitions for all four words.
was assessed 5 weeks after the final learning episode. We In step 3, children were instructed to turn to page two of the
predict that a 1-week interval between learning episodes will booklet (containing the correct definitions of each word).
improve recall 5 weeks later, as compared to a single massed Definitions and use in a sample sentence were repeated by the
learning episode. teacher. Then, children were given 1 min to read over the
definitions by themselves. In Step 4, children were given
3 minutes to complete the last page of the booklet, by writing
METHOD down the definition of each word in the provided space and
writing down a novel sentence using each word. Then, the
Participants teacher collected the booklets. Because different words were
used for each experimental condition, the data from Step 4 of
Forty-six participants (M
10-years-old; 19 female) were
the first learning episode were used to ensure that word
recruited from two fifth-grade classrooms in an upper-middle
difficulty was equal across conditions. During the learning
SES Ontario middle school. Data from seven participants
session, the teacher circulated the classroom to ensure that
were dropped because of failure to complete all sessions due
children remained on task and followed instructions.
to missing class during one or more sessions, resulting in a
The second learning session took place according to the
final sample size of 39 participants.
spacing schedule: either massed, 1 minute after the first learning
session; or spaced, 1 week after the first learning session. During
the second learning session, children were re-taught the same
Materials words, using the same method as during the first learning
session.
Eight English words, judged by the experimenters to be new After a retention interval of 5 weeks following the second
to fifth-grade children, were selected from the GRE word list learning session, children were given a vocabulary test to
(i.e. accolade, coerce, edict, gregarious, latent, salient, tacit assess their retention. Children were given a list of four words,
and vex). According to WordCount.org (Harris, 2003), all and were responsible for writing down the definition of each
words fell outside of the most frequently used 9000 words in word. Children were given 10 minutes to complete this task.
spoken and written English. Four words (two adjectives, one Each child participated in two final test sessions (four words
noun and one verb) were randomly assigned to each study each), so that retention interval remained constant across
condition (massed and 1-week); this word assignment was massed and spaced conditions.
the same for all children. All vocabulary words were
presented to children in a workbook consisting of three pages RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
(Appendix A). The first page listed four vocabulary words to
be learned; the second page showed the actual definitions of We assessed the effects of differently spaced-learning
the words; the third page had a space for children to write sessions (massed; spaced by 1 week) on definition recall
down the definition of the word and to use the word in a after a 5-week retention interval. To ensure that vocabulary
sentence. In addition to the booklets, teachers were given a words in each condition were equally difficult, we analysed
set of overheads that contained these same words and performance for massed and spaced items from the first
definitions as well as rules for the exercise. learning session (i.e. Step 4 in the Procedure). Words in each

Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 25: 763–767 (2011)
 Spacing effects in real-world classrooms 765

experimental condition were equally difficult (massed: one practical technique teachers can use to improve
Mcorrect ¼ 61.8%; spaced: Mcorrect ¼ 61.1%), t(38) ¼ 1.10, children’s retention. Our previous research (Cepeda, Coburn,
p > .05. We also found that the two classrooms performed at Rohrer, Wixted, Mozer, & Pashler, 2009; Cepeda, Vul,
similar overall levels on the first test (t < 1); therefore, data Rohrer, Wixted, & Pashler, 2008) demonstrated that spacing
were collapsed across classrooms. Definitions were con- can double or triple long-term retention in laboratory and
sidered correct if the semantic meaning matched the one web learning contexts. The present study shows that
given during the learning sessions. similarly large spacing benefits can be achieved in a real-
A paired sample t-test revealed that the percentage of world classroom context.
definitions recalled in the spaced condition (M ¼ 20.8, In order for the spacing effect to be implemented
SEM ¼ 4.3) was 177% higher than in the massed condition successfully, it is of vital importance to have collaboration
(M ¼ 7.5, SEM ¼ 2.0), t(38) ¼ 3.0, p ¼ .004, d ¼ 0.48 of researchers, teachers and administrative staff. Also, it
(Figure 1). In the spaced condition, children recalled almost would be helpful to teach these skills at the commencement
three times as many definitions as they did in the massed of a teacher’s career, before routines have been established.
condition. Teacher candidates should be encouraged to apply spacing
Re-learning the same material after a 7-day gap resulted in techniques while learning and practicing generating lesson
superior performance compared to massed review, as shown plans (Dempster, 1990). While teachers are subjected to
by a final test 5 weeks after the last learning episode. These certain pressures to cover the curriculum, and relearning
findings extend existing classroom research and suggest that sessions might be difficult to implement, there are a number
the spacing effect generalizes to real-world classroom of ways that spacing can be introduced into the classroom. As
settings and middle-school children. Merely reorganizing suggestions, teachers might use classroom activities, such as
the structure of classroom lessons, without increasing overall quizzing on key concepts, several days after teaching these
time spent on teaching, is sufficient to improve student concepts, assigning and collecting homework, working in
performance on a later vocabulary-learning test. small groups to discuss concepts introduced in earlier
The current findings are in line with some of the most lessons, writing reflections or summaries on key topics
prominent spacing theories (for review, see Verkoeijen, several days after initial learning and using cumulative tests
2005). For example, the current findings potentially could be and mini assessments to provide children with additional
explained by the encoding (or contextual) variability hypoth- opportunities for spaced learning.
esis (Glenberg, 1979). The encoding variability hypothesis This study has demonstrated that spacing of vocabulary
states that an item is usually encoded in memory along with a learning results in higher performance than massed learning,
particular context (e.g. the teacher’s intonation when reading in middle-school children, using educationally relevant
out the definitions, background noise, events preceding a study spacing intervals between learning episodes and an education-
episode, etc.). This context leaves a number of memory traces. ally meaningful retention interval. Future research should
The greater the number of memory traces, the greater is the expand on these findings by looking at a wider range of item
number of retrieval routes for later recall. Therefore, since types, including complex material. For instance, it is unclear
variation in context is more likely for the spaced presentations whether the spacing effect will apply to math and science
because they occur further apart in time, in this case a whole material (but see Pashler, Rohrer, Cepeda, & Carpenter,
week apart, spaced learning results in higher recall. 2007; Rohrer & Taylor, 2006). It is also imperative to look at
The present study also addresses one major reason why a greater range of spacing gaps between learning sessions.
teachers might not wish to implement the spacing effect, Based on the results of this and other classroom studies (e.g.
namely, the failure of psychologists to demonstrate that the Carpenter et al., 2009), the spacing effect appears to be
spacing effect benefits retention in real-world classrooms robust to the increased variability present in real-world
(Dempster, 1988). Moreover, this experiment demonstrates classroom contexts.

Figure 1. Percentage of definitions recalled at the final test session. Error bars represent one SEM

Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 25: 763–767 (2011)
766 H. S. Sobel et al.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Dempster, F. N. (1990). The spacing effect: Research and practice. Journal
of Research and Development in Education, 23, 97–101.
This work was supported by a grant from the York University DeRemer, P., & D’Agostino, P. R. (1974). Locus of distributes lag effect in
free recall. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13, 167–171.
Faculty of Health. Fishman, J., Keller, L., & Atkinson, R. (1968). Massed versus distributed
practice in computerized spelling drills. Journal of Educational Psychol-
REFERENCES ogy, 59, 290–296.
Glenberg, A. M. (1979). Component-levels theory of the effects of spacing
Bahrick, H. P., & Phelps, E. (1987). Retention of Spanish vocabulary over 8 of repetition on recall and recognition. Memory & Cognition, 7, 95–112.
years. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Harris, J. (2003). WordCount. Available: http://wordcount.org/ [2 May 2010]
Cognition, 13, 344–349. Moss, V. D. (1995). The efficacy of massed versus distributed practice as a
Bloom, K. C., & Shuell, T. J. (1981). Effects of massed and distributed function of desired learning outcomes and grade level of the student
practice on the learning and retention of second-language vocabulary. (Doctoral dissertation, Utah State University, 1995). Dissertation
Journal of Educational Research, 74, 245–248. Abstracts International, 56, 5204.
Carpenter, S. K., Pashler, H., & Cepeda, N. J. (2009). Using tests to enhance Pashler, H., Rohrer, D., Cepeda, N. J., & Carpenter, S. K. (2007). Enhancing
8th grade students’ retention of U.S. history facts. Applied Cognitive learning and retarding forgetting: Choices and consequences. Psycho-
Psychology, 23, 760–771. nomic Bulletin and Review, 14, 187–1193.
Cepeda, N. J., Coburn, N., Rohrer, D., Wixted, J. T., Mozer, M. C., & Pashler, Rohrer, D., & Taylor, K. (2006). The effects of overlearning and distributed
H. (2009). Optimizing distributed practice: Theoretical analysis and practice on the retention of mathematics knowledge. Applied Cognitive
practical implications. Experimental Psychology, 54, 236–246. Psychology, 20, 1209–1224.
Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Seabrook, R., Brown, G. D., & Solity, J. E. (2005). Distributed and massed
Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative practice: From laboratory to classroom. Applied Cognitive Psychology,
synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 354–380. 19, 107–122.
Cepeda, N. J., Vul, E., Rohrer, D., Wixted, J. T., & Pashler, H. (2008). Toppino, T. C., & DeMesquita, M. (1984). Effects of spacing repetitions on
Spacing effects in learning: A temporal ridgeline of optimal retention. children’s memory. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 37, 637–
Psychological Science, 19, 1095–1102. 648.
Childers, J. B., & Tomasello, M. (2002). Two-year-olds learn novel nouns, Verkoeijen, P. P. (2005). Explaining the spacing effect: Study-phase retrie-
verbs, and conventional actions from massed or distributed exposures. val, contextual-variability and priming accounts. Unpublished doctoral
Developmental Psychology, 38, 967–978. dissertation, Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Cuvo, A. J. (1975). Developmental differences in rehearsal and free recall. Vlach, H. A., Sandhofer, C. M., & Kornell, N. (2008). The spacing effect in
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 19, 265–278. children’s memory and category induction. Cognition, 109, 163–167.
Dempster, F. N. (1987). Effects of variable encoding and spaced presenta- Wilson, W. P. (1976). Developmental changes in the lag effect: An encoding
tions on vocabulary learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 79, hypothesis for repeated word recall. Journal of Experimental Child
162–170. Psychology, 22, 113–122.
Dempster, F. N. (1988). The spacing effect: A case study in the failure to Zechmeister, E. B., & Shaughnessy, J. J. (1980). When you know that you
apply the results of psychological research. American Psychologist, 43, know and when you think that you know but you don’t. Bulletin of the
627–634. Psychonomic Society, 15, 41–44.

Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 25: 763–767 (2011)
 Spacing effects in real-world classrooms 767

APPENDIX A: SAMPLE BOOKLET

Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 25: 763–767 (2011)