Spaced Retrieval Practice in Two Fundamental Engineering Courses: Calculus and Physics

This full-length, research-to-practice paper discusses an ongoing NSF project aimed at implementing spaced retrieval practice in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) classes. By implementing evidence-based learning practices in the classroom, educational performance, and thereby retention and graduation rates, are thought to be improved. Retrieval practice refers to the repeated recall of information from memory to increase the information’s future accessibility. Retrieval practice can be massed or spaced. In massed practice, all acts of recall occur during a single short temporal window. In spaced practice, acts of recall are temporally distributed. This project implements spaced retrieval practice in STEM barrier courses in the fields of biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, physics, and psychology. The current dissemination focuses on spaced retrieval practice in one section of Calculus for Engineers and two sections of Fundamentals of Physics I, with similarly delivered implementations. Spaced retrieval practice significantly improved student performance in calculus but not in the two sections of physics. Potential explanations for these results are discussed, as well as implications.