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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6441 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 9 of 12 07 March 2008 at 12:36am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thank you. I've read the articles, and have some comments and questions. You're clearly more aware of research papers in this field than I am, so I'm asking on the chance that you (or anyone) may know of papers, research areas, and terms which address these questions. Any further pointers will be greatly appreciated. I'd -love- to have answers to all of the following questions, but I'd appreciate answers to any. I apologize for the number of questions. What is the definition of 'mastery'? All three papers you cited use it, without definition, so I assume it's jargon of the field. The way I personally think about something similar is what I call 'clicking' (ie, the fact or concept 'clicks into' place). I find this correlates extremely highly with being able to understand, use, and remember facts (and the efficiency of doing so) - other criteria, such as amount of time spent, tend to be -negligible- in comparison. Basically, it's a sensation of really getting the material, accompanied by a sharp sensation at the point when this occurs. I apologize for the poor description; it's something hard to verbalize. Does this correlate in some way with the definition of mastery - perhaps as a corresponding internal state to some external criteria? My preferred style of learning is partly echoed by tangential comments in the papers. Specifically, I like relatively long sessions where I cover very large amounts of material, making an attempt to understand (I suspect this largely prevents 'underlearning' - which, traditionally, I've found hugely ineffective), but no attempt to memorize. "The Effects of Overlearning on Long-Term Retention" says "Instead of studying a small amount of material, you should study a larger amount of material. In return, you will be able to recall more information absolutely"; this is mirrored by the data the above papers had on higher absolute (rather than percentage-wise) retention using 20 words rather than 10. This was basically how I got through school (if really high retention is needed, I find it -much- simpler to do this, then intentionally memorize to fill in the gaps, rather than trying to memorize everything; the short term results are similar, and both the papers and my experience suggest that the long term results of my technique are -better-). Is there a fixed term or set of terms for this technique? I also find it extremely useful to build on the material learned; this is perhaps the single most helpful thing I know of for retaining material. One thing I've found useful for classes is to do material which -isn't- required, but which is based on material that is; it tends to make the latter seem extremely easy, as well as reinforcing it. What is this technique called? Given the clear benefits of overlearning over the short term, are there benefits to starting with overlearning, and then complimenting it with other techniques within a week? Have there been studies based on the idea of long study sessions, branching out into further material quickly, either in the same session, or in ones held in close proximity? Figure 2 in "The Effects of Overlearning on Long-Term Retention" shows two hypothetical retention curves for amount of material (list length) vs absolute recall, one of which is is asymptotically approaching a high value, and the other of which shows a decline as the amount of material increases beyond a certain point. Has there been significant research which casts further light on the actual curve? How about research which shows the former, but also how the effects vary over time? Some general comments: The discussion of overlearning vs spaced repetition does match my experience. Specifically, I find overlearning as it appears to be implemented in the papers to be a terrible waste of time, for amazingly little gain. The discussion of single-topic vs mixed-topic math worksheets echoes what I saw with school, although the authors don't mention a possible extra factor - mixed worksheets also make you -think- about what technique to use, rather than applying it by rote, as seems to be usual with students doing single-topic worksheets. Between explicit spaced repetition and learning more, I tend to prefer the latter. In general, if a topic is important, it tends to end up showing up often enough that this gives me (admittedly ad-hoc, without fixed intervals) spaced repetition of a sort, while also letting me build on what I've learned. Given the inefficiency of overlearning, and the relatively low recall after a couple of months shown in all the above papers, I think that alternative methods of learning seem worth considering. Do you know of any paper comparing spaced repetition, overlearning, or any technique which involves rote memorization vs alternatives (such as, but not limited to, mnemonics), along with retention over time? Finally, I wonder about the implications for L-R. L-R involves being exposed to massive amounts of material. More and more becomes comprehensible, progressively building on what is picked up earlier. Has there been systemic research which deals with the learning of comparable amounts of material? All I have on L-R so far is fairly anecdotal. Perhaps the most striking result is that I recognize (not -know-) most of the words in "The Master and Margarita" after reading it twice. Edit: to avoid totally changing the topic of this thread, I've moved my discussion of L-R definitions to http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=9446&PN=1&TPN=1. Edited by Volte on 07 March 2008 at 10:28am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6677 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 11 of 12 08 March 2008 at 4:16am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Volte, I use two resources to look for information:
http://scholar.google.es/ If you want to find scientific reports, it's very useful. http://www.memory-key.com/index.htm I am suscribed to memory-key website. It has a lot of scientific facts about memory. I strongly recommend it.It has information about learning languages as well. Here another article about spaced practice: http://www.memory-key.com/ResearchReports/landauer77.htm About mastery. It means you have learned without mistakes. If you solve a problem, you have mastery. If you solve other problem about the same subject, you are overlearning. I think slightly overlearning is useful, but not the huge, massive overlearning sessions some people recommend. That's boring and useless. About L.-R, I think it works with an underlaying spaced repetition. I use SRS (input version with controlled output) to review key sentences and concepts, but my first method is extensive reading and listening all the time. Sometimes listening without paying attention. I think all these extensive approaches are a kind of disguised spaced practice. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6441 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 12 of 12 11 March 2008 at 6:59pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I use google scholar, citeseer, etc. However, it's extremely difficult to get good results without the right terms - hence, all of my terminology questions. It can literally be the difference between 10 seconds and finding what I seek vs several hours without doing so. Thanks for the memory-key link.
Ah, that's a rather specialized definition of mastery; it's definitely not how I would've defined it. I have a similar reaction to that definition of overlearning. Thanks! And I agree, massive overlearning can be amazingly boring and useless.
I agree with your idea that these things are essentially spaced repetition - albeit without fixed intervals or feedback on how often something should be repeated. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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