Do spaced sessions and feedback improve vocabulary recall?
German-speaking learners recalled more Finnish vocabulary after distributed sessions, while retrieval trials benefited from corrective feedback; spacing groups were not fully randomised.
Source
Spacing, Feedback, and Testing Boost Vocabulary Learning in a Web Application
Study at a glance
- Design
- Human experiment — Mixed factorial experiment; spacing allocation partly constrained by scheduling
- N
- N=79 · 87 recruited; 79 analysed
- Population
- Native or advanced German speakers, ages 16–77, without prior Finnish knowledge
- Outcome
- Delayed cued recall of Finnish–German translations
- Comparison
- One 80-minute session versus two 40-minute or four 20-minute sessions; feedback and retrieval proportions varied within participants
- Test delay
- Two-day gap planned; actual mean gaps across participants ranged about 43–77 hours
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Inspect source passages
Do spaced sessions and feedback improve vocabulary recall?
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
What was the main finding?
In support of H1, participants in which learning was distributed the most (four sessions) had the highest recall performance (M = 77.2, SD = 29).
What is the main limit on applying this result?
The levels of the variable Spacing (one, two, or four sessions) were equally distributed among the experimenters, but the participant allocation to the levels was not done entirely at random: the rigid scheduling of several sessions would have made it impossible for some to participate.
What they did
The analysis included 79 German-speaking participants learning 48 Finnish word pairs in a web application. Everyone received 80 minutes of study, divided into one, two, or four sessions. The planned gap between sessions and before the final cued-recall test was two days, although actual gaps varied. Feedback, retrieval-trial proportion, and audio presentation were varied within participants. Scheduling preferences influenced assignment to the spacing groups.
What they found
Mean delayed recall was 77.2% after four sessions, 59.1% after two, and 52.5% after one massed session. Corrective feedback improved recall. There was no overall benefit of the higher retrieval-trial proportion or audio presentation, but feedback helped particularly with the higher proportion of retrieval trials. The combined conditions should not be interpreted as a pure spacing or pure testing effect.
The limits
What it doesn't show
Spacing groups were not fully randomly assigned, and performance already differed during the first learning block. Participant differences may therefore explain part of the spacing result. The test occurred roughly two to three days after learning, not months later. Word-pair translation is not the same as conversational proficiency or examination performance, and session spacing does not validate any particular flashcard scheduling algorithm.
Key terms
- Retention interval
- The time between the last learning opportunity and the outcome test.
- Comparison condition
- The alternative study activity or exposure against which a result is assessed.
- Generalisation
- Whether a result applies to other populations, materials, settings or outcomes.
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Common questions
Does spaced repetition improve long-term recall?
This experiment supports better delayed vocabulary recall after distributed sessions, but its short follow-up and partly non-random assignment limit how far the result travels.
Does more testing always help?
Not here: the higher retrieval proportion had no overall main effect. Its benefit depended on corrective feedback.
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