Implementing Spaced Retrieval Practice Across Multiple STEM Domains to Enhance Student Learning in Barrier Courses

University Of Louisville Research Foundation Inc, Louisville KY

Investigators

Abstract

With support from the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources (IUSE: EHR), this project aims to serve the national interest by improving learning in introductory STEM courses through spaced retrieval practice. Spaced retrieval practice requires students to periodically answer questions that require them to recall what they previously learned. It is a is a memory-enhancing, research-based instructional technique that has been shown to improve memory of concepts both within and between semesters. Spaced retrieval practice is especially important in barrier courses where a lack of success restricts students from further pursuing STEM degrees. This project will study the effectiveness of spaced retrieval practice in ten different introductory STEM courses. This intervention may be most beneficial to students who traditionally underperform in STEM, thus helping to broaden participation in STEM careers. Building on previous results of the effectiveness of spaced retrieval in a few courses, this project aims to implementing and measuring the effects of spaced retrieval in ten different undergraduate STEM courses at the University of Louisville. Through a series of workshops, project team leaders will work with faculty to design spaced retrieval exercises for their courses. The intervention will then be implemented for one semester using the same implementation strategy in all courses, reaching a total of over 1,600 students. Retention of classroom content following spaced retrieval practice will be compared, in within-subjects fashion, to retention following massed retrieval practice. The effect of the practice manipulation (the magnitude of the difference between performance following spacing versus massing) will be compared across different courses, permitting assessment of spacing's effectiveness across domains. For those courses in which spaced retrieval practice is shown to be effective, the project will investigate whether the magnitude of the spacing-related benefit differs. In addition, it may be possible to detect other classroom design and demographic moderators of the effect, depending upon sample sizes and variations in classrooms. Results could provide evidence to support implementation of spaced retrieval as a strategy to increase student success in STEM courses nationwide. Increasing student success in STEM courses will lead to more individuals successfully pursuing STEM careers. It will also pave the way for future research to explore the impacts of spaced retrieval practice in the context of different types of institutions of higher education, potentially leading to even broader adoption of the intervention. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.