Spreading study over sessions helped people remember more than studying all at once.

The review

1. 01

   Who took part

   The review pooled 317 experiments from 184 articles, mostly with young adults aged 18 to 35. Children and older adults were included in smaller numbers, but studies of patient groups were left out.

2. 02

   What they did

   People saw the same material two or more times. Sometimes the repeats came straight after each other, and sometimes there was a gap between them. Some tests compared gaps that grew each time with equal gaps.

3. 03

   What happened

   In 254 studies, spaced study gave 47% correct on the final test, against 37% for studying all at once. Only 12 of 271 comparisons showed no gain or a loss from spacing. Gaps that grew each time did no better than equal gaps, with 62% against 59% correct, and that difference was not clear. The best gap between sessions got longer as the wait before the test got longer.

What the review found

1. Helped

   Across 254 studies, spreading study out helped people remember more than studying all at once.

   Pooled analysis of 254 studies · vs the same material studied all in one go · behaviour was recorded

2. No difference

   Across 18 studies, sessions with gaps that grew each time did no better than sessions with equal gaps.

   Pooled analysis of 18 studies · vs sessions with equal gaps between them · behaviour was recorded

Source