Self-reported spaced study: Associations with college students' grades and self-regulation

Experimental evidence shows that spaced study (in which restudy is distributed across time) supports long-term retention of studied materials compared to less spaced or more massed study (i.e., the spacing effect). However, in surveys of students' study behavior in uncontrolled settings, self-reported spaced study rarely correlates with real-world outcomes, such as grades. In this article, we question whether previous self-reports have truly assessed spacing, since they do not address whether students revisit the same concepts. Immediately following each exam in a college course, two samples of students in different semesters (N = 185, Spring 2016; N = 194, Spring 2017) reported their spacing behavior via two survey items modeled after prior research and one novel item. The items addressed (a) whether students had spread their study across sessions, (b) whether they had crammed, and (c) whether they had restudied the same concepts (the novel item). In both samples, only the novel item predicted scores on all exams, even when controlling for total study time. The item also predicted indicators of self-regulation, likely a factor in whether students space their study. We emphasize that restudy is a defining feature of spacing that should not be overlooked when investigating self-reported spaced study. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).