When we struggled to learn things or carry out new tasks as children, it's more than likely that our parents or teachers reminded us that 'practice makes perfect' or told us to keep going and to 'try, try, try again'.
As adults, we might find those phrases irritating (or down right annoying); but, you know what, hate to have to admit it, but mums and teachers really did know best!
This is borne out by some research into the use of practice activities in e-learning. It should be interesting to anyone involved in instructional design or instructinal designer training.
Comparing learning from two versions of an e-learning course, (one offering more practice activities than the other) researchers found that the version with more practice activities increased learning for both higher and lower ability learners.
In this study, both lower and higher ability learners scored 15% higher on end of course tests compared with those who had taken the version of the course with fewer practice activities.
So it does seem that if higher learner achievement is a key goal (and surely it will be), broadly speaking, more practice will mean better learning outcomes.
The other key point in relation to practice activities is the pacing of learning through a course. A good many studies have been carried out around this. The research has consistently highlighted two key points:
First, that spacing practice activities through a course really is more effective.
Second, the benefit does not show up immediately. Longer term studies have revealed that over a period of several years, spaced practice leads to much better long-term retention of learning.
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