MASSED VS SPACED PRACTICE OF LEARNING

INTRODUCTION

Learning means the acquisition of knowledge or skill. Any

measurable change in behaviour of organism is learning .The
efficiency of the performance depends on learning. Deep and long-
lasting learning involves understanding, relating ideas and making
connections between prior and new knowledge. When people learn
anything ,some parts of their brain is physically changed to record
what they have learned This is actually a process of Memory.

Memory is our cognitive system for storing and retrieving

information .In the absence of memory remembering of past events
cannot possible .skills or knowledge acquired throughout the life are
retained in our memory .

If we are able to remember some material acquired in

the past ,we say it is retained. The learned activity can be repeated in
the same manner because of its retention.

VERBAL LEARNING

Verbal learning is one of the skill we acquire in our day to day life. It
is concerned with learning of words ,digits, symbols ,Letters ,etc.It is
the useful tool of communication and concept formation. Verbal
material means word ,symbols ,letters ,digits ,nonsense syllables, etc
.Verbal material can be meaningful and meaningless both.
Ebbinghause was the first person who used nonsense syllables as
learning material in the experiment
 Nonsense syllables are said to be pronounceable
combination of letters which do not make meaningful words. Non
sense syllables are usually called CVC or CCC trigram.

MASSED VS SPACED LEARNNG

Massed versus Spaced practice is an important method of learning .

In massed practice exercise trials are conducted continuously for
memorising verbal material until all the material is correctly recalled.

In Spaced practice trials are distributed in block and between

the blocks of trials some rest is provided to the learner

It is generally found that the acquisition of psychomotor

skills in spaced practice makes learning easier than massed practice .
The continuous practice for a prolonged period induces fatigue that
affect the efficacy of learner. In fatigued situation loss of speed and
accuracy in the performance are experienced by a learner .So units
of short exercise motivates a learner to continue the task after rest.
Besides, intermittent rests are found useful for neural traces of
learned materials for better preservation or consolidation

According to Hall (1966)distributed practice is more useful than

massed practice of learning

Ebbinghaus suggested (1885) with massed learning there will be

more interference between successive items from one another.
whereas frequent rest breaks will help to separate item from one
another

AIM

To conduct an experiment to understand the effectiveness of

massed versus spaced practice of learning
HYPOTHESIS

To conduct an experiment to demonstrate Learning by distributed

practice would be better than massed practice

A)Participant

Name :

Age :

Gender :

Education :

B)Material required

1. Two list of CCC trigram

2. Memory drum

3. Stop watch

4. Paper &Pencil

c) Design

Massed and Spaced practice test design will be used in the

experiment

Table 1.Design for experiment for the Massed and Spaced practice
comparison
 conditions Learning Learning Learning Exposure
material method criterion time of
each
item
1 List a Massed 2continous 2sec
containing Practice errorless
10 CCC trials
Trigram
5 minutes ____ ____ _____
rest

2 List B Distributed 2continous 2 sec

Containing practice errorless
10 CCC trials
trigram

D)Instruction

The following instruction have to be given to the participant “see

the memory drum apparatus with CCC trigram attached to the
apparatus. There are 2 list of CCC trigram with 10 item each for
condition one and two. Each item will be shown one by one through
the window of the memory drum. You have to recall the words
correctly with spelling them out .You have to concentrate the word
so that you can recall correctly as possible .You will have to recall the
words either by giving breaks or without breaks as per the
conditions.

E) Procedure

Initially the participant has to be familiar with preliminary trials .The

experiment is conducting in two condition. In the first
condition ,show the participant the CCC trigram one by one for two
second through the tachistoscope .Toward the end the participant
was asked to correctly recall the items. Properly note the response of
the participant on a data sheet with right (√) and wrong(×) symbols.
Follow the same procedure continuously without any break
between each trial .Note down the number of trials taken for the 2
continues errorless trials. After 5 minutes of rest .In the second
condition, attach list B in memory drum and expose the words for 2
second. Then ask the participant to recall the letters. Then repeat the
next trials only after 50 second of gap. In this way note the number
of trials takes to correctly reproduce the words in two continuous
trials .Note the correct responses of the participant. Lastly ask the
participant to narrate his/her experience

TABLE :

(an illustrative data is given)

Table 2 :The responses of the subject from massed practice in

massed versus spaced learning
 Condition 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
list of CCC
trigram
× × √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √

× × × × √ √ √ × × √ √ √ √

× × × × √ √ √ × × √ √ √ √

× × × × √ √ √ × × √ × √ √

× × × × √ √ √ × × √ × √ √

× × × × × √ √ × × √ √ √ √

× × × × × √ √ × × √ √ √ √

× × √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √

× × × × × √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √

× × × × × × × × √ √ √ √ √

× × × × × × × × × × × √ √

× × × × × × × × × × × √ √

× × × × × × × × × × × √ √

Table 3:The response of the subject from spaced practice in massed

versus the spaced practice

condition No of trials
 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
× × √ √ √ √ √ √

× × × × √ √ √ √

× × × × √ √ √ √

× × × × √ √ √ √

× × × × √ √ √ √

× × × × √ √ √ √

× × × × × × √ √

× × × × × × √ √

× × × × √ √ √ √

× × × √ √ √ √ √

RESULT

From table 2

The number of trials taken by the participant in memorizing list A by

the method of massed practice=13 trials

From Table3

Number of trials taken by the participant in memorizing list by the

method of spaced practice =8 Trials

Difference in trials between two method=13-8=5 trial

A−B
Percentage of difference= A ×100
 13−8
13 ×100=38.46

DISCUSSION

The experiment was to illustrate the efficiency of massed versus

Spaced learning .The results clearly manifest the learning by
spaced/Distributed practice would better than massed practice .The
number of trials taken by the participant in memorising by the
method of distributed practice is 8 trials .Thus the participant had 5
trial discrepancy between spaced practice over massed practice. That
indicate the saving of 5 trials. There are 38.46% learning difference
between massed versus spaced learning .The saving in the time
taken in spaced learning than massed learning manifest, the spaced
practice is more attainable. As the participant was not having any
breaks between trials in massed learning , he was aloof for
completing the task and took more trials. But in spaced practice he
was more attentive to accomplish the tasks .The trials has been
reduced to 8 trials in spaced learning .This signify the spaced practice
would be better than massed practice. Consequently the hypothesis
is conformed

CONCLUSION

The results draw the inference that learning by spaced practice is

better than learning by massed practice