Scientific Reports - Practice testing enhances learning but not attitude change from persuasive texts

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The present study modeled how students' interest in a course of study changes and how those changes fit into their broader course experiences.The pres…

Im Beitrag wird ein Entwurf eines Interessenmodells für die Naturwissenschaften vorgestellt, das sich auf zentrale Aspekte von Interesse als I) zeitlich stabile Disposition (Voraussetzung fü...

For decades, in German-speaking areas, well-founded recommendations for practice formats in the mathematics classroom have been available, and instructional models of practice are also examined in empirical research on learning and instruction. While empirical studies often focus on consolidating factual knowledge and skills, suggestions typically adopt a broader view of goals for practice: Consolidation then refers to both skills and conceptual understanding, often in connection with each other. This article discusses the research available as well as the possible implications for practice in mathematics classrooms and for desirable further research on practicing.For the design of practice phases, it is first necessary to specify the goals (especially mathematical concepts and mathematical procedures and strategies) and then identify the associated psychological types of knowledge (factual knowledge, skills, and understanding) and the function of the practicing (securing, flexibilizing, or deepening). These determinations then allow for the selection and design of suitable practice formats, of which the following five types—each with their theoretical foundation, empirical evidence, and considerations for practical implementation—are presented: (1) Retrieval practice, (2) distributed practice (primarily for declarative factual knowledge or simple skills), (3) interleaved practice with the implicit possibility for comparisons (especially for easily confusable facts or skills) or with explicit comparison prompts (also for more complex types of knowledge, such as procedural flexibility or understanding), (4) elaborative practice (with a focus on understanding), and (5) combinatory practice as an “intelligent” integration of multiple practice goals. While the first three practice formats have been systematically researched, the last two are more commonly found under the umbrella term “productive practice” in theoretically justifiable but less extensively studied practical recommendations.

Supporting consolidation, understood as the strengthening of declarative knowledge and the automation of procedural knowledge, represents a central dimension of teaching quality. Despite its importance, research on teaching quality has largely overlooked this aspect. This article brings together perspectives from educational psychology and subject-specific pedagogy to examine the key mechanisms of consolidation and to clarify its role in disciplinary learning processes. The analysis focuses on two main functions of consolidation: the stabilization of declarative knowledge and the optimization of procedural knowledge. From a subject-specific pedagogical perspective, the article presents instructional designs and task formats that effectively support these functions in classroom practice.The article concludes with a comparative analysis of the contributions in this thematic section. From the perspective of educational psychology, the mechanisms of consolidation are well understood, but their implementation in school settings remains insufficiently studied. From the perspectives of mathematics, language arts, and physical education pedagogy, consolidation appears as a highly relevant aspect of teaching and learning, but it remains theoretically and empirically underdeveloped. Future work should attend more closely to aligning consolidation practices with specific learning content, addressing students’ prior knowledge, and managing the frequency and intensity of consolidation opportunities in instruction.

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Interleaved practice (or interleaving), the strategy of alternating between categories or concepts during study or practice, can enhance second langua…

Although cognitive activation has been receiving growing scholarly attention, research findings on its contribution to student outcomes have been inco…