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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 17, 2026

Experimental Paradigm for Measuring the Effects of Self-distancing in Young Children
07:01

Experimental Paradigm for Measuring the Effects of Self-distancing in Young Children

Published on: March 1, 2019

Metacognitive control and the spacing effect.

Lisa K Son1

  • 1Barnard College, Columbia University, 3009 Broadway, New York, NY 10027, USA. lson@barnard.edu

Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition
|January 8, 2010
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Learners benefit from spacing study sessions, but only when they choose this strategy. Forcing a spacing strategy, even if beneficial, does not improve performance as much as self-selected learning methods.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Educational Psychology
  • Learning Sciences

Background:

  • Spacing strategies, where study sessions are distributed over time, are generally more effective than massing them together.
  • Metacognition, or the awareness and control of one's own cognitive processes, plays a role in learning strategy selection.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if the spacing effect in learning is universally beneficial, even when learners metacognitively choose massing.
  • To examine the impact of honoring or overriding learner-chosen study strategies (spacing vs. massing) on performance.
  • To compare the effects of self-chosen versus externally imposed spacing strategies on learning outcomes in adults and children.

Main Methods:

  • Participants (adults and children) made judgments of learning and chose to mass or space their study of word pairs.
  • A portion of participants' choices were overridden (e.g., forced massing after choosing spacing, and vice versa).
  • Performance was assessed based on whether study choices were honored or manipulated.

Main Results:

  • The spacing effect was observed in both adults and children when their chosen study strategies were honored.
  • For adults, a forced spacing strategy, when contrary to their choice, did not improve performance.
  • For children, forced spacing enhanced performance compared to massing but was less effective than self-chosen spacing.

Conclusions:

  • Spacing is an effective learning strategy, but its benefit is not universal and depends on learner choice.
  • Metacognitive control over learning strategies is crucial for optimizing performance.
  • Respecting learners' self-selected strategies can be more effective than imposing potentially beneficial, but unchosen, methods.