Deck 17: The Amount and Distribution of Practice

Question 1

The term overlearning refers to engaging learners in additional practice after they have achieved a specified performance criterion.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

The classic study by Longman and Baddeley, which involved the training of postal workers to perform a keyboarding skill, demonstrated that distributed practice is better for learning than massed practice when it applies to the length and distribution of practice sessions.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

The results of the experiment by Dail and Christina in which novice golfers practiced putting, the massed practice group accurately predicted their retention test performance during the practice trials.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

A limitation of research investigating massed vs. distributed practice is:

A) Too many practice trials
B) Inappropriate tasks to be learned
C) Retention intervals that are not sufficiently long
D) The lack of a retention or transfer test

Question 5

When increasing the amount of practice beyond a certain point does not lead to results proportionally beneficial for learning, the practice has reached a point of:

A) Diminishing returns
B) Limited benefit
C) Overpractice
D) Saturation

Question 6

Baddely and Longman (1978) compared various massed and distributed training schedules for training postal workers and found the worst schedule for learning to be:

A) 2-hour sessions twice a day for 3 weeks
B) 2-hour sessions once a day for 6 weeks
C) 1-hour sessions twice a day for 6 weeks
D) 1-hour sessions once a day for 12 weeks

Question 7

Raoul practiced a skill for 30 seconds and then rested for 5-seconds between trials. Scarlett practiced the same skill for 30 seconds and rested for 40-seconds between trials. Which of the following best describes their practice situation:

A) Raoul's practice is distributed; Scarlett's is massed
B) Raoul's practice is massed; Scarlett's is distributed
C) Both are in a massed practice condition
D) Both are in a distributed practice condition

Question 8

Which of the following best describes a general rule about practice distribution schedules for the length and distribution of practice sessions?

A) Distributed practice schedules are better
B) Massed practice schedules are better
C) Both schedules lead to the same amount of learning
D) The rule would depend on the type of skill being learned

Question 9

Practice schedule A involves two 1-hour practice sessions on each of three days, while schedule B involves one 1-hour practice session on each of six days. In this scenario, schedule A would be referred to as:

A) Blocked practice
B) Distributed practice
C) Massed practice
D) Random practice

Question 10

In the research study involving fifth-grade students who were learning a football skill, a comparison of teacher-designed and student-designed practice formats showed that the _______ format led to better learning of the skill.

Question 11

Although research evidence supports overlearning as an effective practice strategy for learning, it is important to remember that the amount of practice is:

A) Next in importance to variability for influencing skill learning
B) Not a critical variable influencing skill learning
C) Not the most critical variable influencing skill learning
D) The most critical variable influencing skill learning

Question 12

Which of the following statements are true?

A) Continuous skills are learned better with massed schedules; discrete skills are learned better with distributed schedules
B) Continuous skills are learned better with distributed schedules; discrete skills are learned better with massed schedules
C) Both continuous and discrete skills are learned better with massed schedules
D) Both continuous and discrete skills are learned better with distributed schedules

Question 13

In the study by Schendel and Hagman (1982), the machine gun assembly-disassembly skill that was shown to benefit from overtraining is an example of a(n):

A) Procedural skill
B) Continuous skill
C) Dynamic skill
D) Open skill

Question 14

If intertrial intervals are shorter than the length of a practice trial, then the practice schedule is considered to be a ________ schedule.

Question 15

Learning _______ skills seems to be hindered by practice in a distributed schedule.

Question 16

Research has shown that the overlearning strategy benefits the learning of all types of motor skills.

Question 17

When massed practice hinders the learning of continuous skills, the most probable cause is:

A) Boredom
B) Anxiety
C) Fatigue
D) Confusion

Question 18

Research has shown that the general guideline for establishing the frequency of practice sessions is that [more and shorter] or [fewer and longer] sessions are preferable.

Question 19

The experiment by Shea and Kohl found that for learning a task that required the participants to use a specified amount of _______, overlearning resulted in poorer learning than less practice.

Question 20

Although the experiment involving the training of U.S. Army soldiers to assemble and disassemble a machine gun found that both the immediate overtraining and the "refresher" overtraining yielded similar beneficial retention results, they recommended the use of the ________ overtraining procedure.

Question 21

Massed intertrial interval schedules lead to better learning for continuous skills than distributed schedules.

Question 22

When the study of practice distribution refers to the length of the intertrial interval, one of the problems has been that researchers have generally failed to consider the relationship of the type of skill to the practice distribution effect.

Question 23

When the study of practice distribution refers to the length of the intertrial interval during a practice session, there is general agreement about the definitions of the terms massed and distributed.