People who reached deeper sleep were more likely to find the hidden rule
Of 28 people who reached the second sleep stage, 24 found the rule; among 18 who stayed awake, 10 did.
Learning and education
Learning can mean remembering a fact, solving a task or applying knowledge in a new situation. These readings explore research on education while keeping those differences in view.
What to look for in these studies
A result on one test does not necessarily show lasting learning or transfer to another task. Look at the age of participants, the setting, the comparison and when learning was measured. No method works equally well for every person and subject.
- What did participants learn, and how was it measured?
- How much time passed before the assessment?
- What teaching method or condition was compared?
Explore the research
When people chose what to practice, they stayed with the same topic
People who set their own sequence repeated the same concept 64% of the time; only in that group was repetition associated with a slightly better score.
Grading peers and being graded raised scores slightly
In a statistics course, each student tried both approaches in randomized order; the final advantage was two or three percentage points.
Pauses in handwriting described writing better than pressure
A tablet tracked the strokes of 853 first graders: pauses and changes in speed mattered more than how hard they pressed.
With review in both formats, the flipped class did not have higher grades
Among 42 physical therapy students randomly assigned to one section or the other, average scores were similar. Students in the flipped class felt more confident.
Sharing a desk for one semester made friendship more likely
With randomly assigned seats in rural Hungarian schools, mutual friendship rose from just over 15% to just over 22%.
More correct answers after questions than after rereading
Psychology undergraduates applied concepts to new topics one week later: 64% answered correctly after practice, compared with 40% after rereading alone.
A kindergarten program with play and self-regulation: 33% read at a first-grade level, versus 10%
With schools randomly assigned, the program also combined reading and writing: 30% wrote an original sentence, versus 10% in the other group.
Moving while counting improved math, but other outcomes did not change.
Twelve Danish schools were randomly assigned: after nine months, improvement was greater in math. No change was seen in mental control, aerobic fitness, or weight.
Chess instead of math: the clearest signal was in pattern recognition
The clearest signal appeared in pattern recognition. There was no firm evidence of improvement on other tests.
An online course on learning math improved scores
In California middle schools, the average student in classes taking the course scored higher than 63% of the group scheduled to receive it later.
After about 28 game sessions, children matched sounds with letters better
Progress was not the same in Belgium and Finland. In the Belgian sample, children who did better in the game also read more fluently.
With ABRA, the clear improvement was in letters and sounds
In Canadian classrooms, the clear advantage appeared in connecting letters and sounds. Results on other measures were less firm.
With PASSI, the initial gap between bilingual and monolingual households was no longer detectable
Scores increased with the program; no improvement was seen with usual instruction. The initial gap was no longer detectable only with the 30-week program.
No advantage for three reading programs was seen in second grade
Reading was reassessed for 2,700 children from early-childhood centers randomly assigned to three programs or none. No difference was seen in second grade.
A formative-assessment routine improved understanding of motion
In Swiss secondary schools, teacher training with questions, discussion, and follow-up outperformed frequent questions alone and usual instruction. The advantage remained after three months.
More correct answers with explanations than with a right-or-wrong mark
Medical students answered correctly more often with explanations (56% and 59%) than with a mark (51%). With new questions, neither explanation was better.
A message of encouragement did not change first-exam grades
Average grades for more than 15,000 university students in Hungary did not improve. In a voluntary survey, confidence rose slightly.
After a virtual lab, scores rose from 64% to 82%
Most participants were health-science and biomedical-engineering students who described their virtual-reality experience: motivation, willingness to repeat it, and eye discomfort.
After naps longer than half an hour, students remembered the lesson better
Fifth-graders had a chance to sleep after science or history lessons. No difference in recall was seen after short naps.
Split sleep with a nap: participants recognized previously seen items better
With the same total opportunity to sleep, adolescents ages 15 to 19 recognized previously seen images better when sleep was split between night and a nap.
Immersive technology and regular classes led to similar knowledge
Across 29 trials with 2,722 health students, satisfaction, confidence, and engagement tended to be rated more highly with immersive technology.
Groups that discussed answers understood a little more physiology
This occurred in first-year medical seminars, compared with students who explained answers on their own. No advantage was seen on very different problems.
Students who added a lesson with breaks to physics made greater gains
In physics as a separate subject at six English schools, adding it before the usual class was associated with gains 50% to 90% greater.