Active Recall and Spaced Repetition for GCSE

Why does rereading feel like it works?

When you read your notes for the third time, everything looks familiar. That feeling of “yes, I know this” is recognition, and it is cheap. The exam does not ask you to recognise a page. It asks you to produce an answer on a blank line with nothing in front of you, which is a different and harder skill. John Dunlosky, a psychologist who reviewed the research on study strategies for the American Federation of Teachers, describes rereading and highlighting as particularly popular with students and relatively ineffective. He notes that rereading has inconsistent effects on learning and that any benefit over a single reading may not last. It is not useless, but it is the weakest thing you can do with a spare half hour.

What is active recall?

Active recall, which researchers call retrieval practice or practice testing, is any activity where you try to remember before you look. Dunlosky calls it one of the most effective strategies for improving student learning, and points out that more than a century of research shows practice tests beating rereading of the same material. It works for two reasons you can feel for yourself. Retrieving a fact makes it easier to retrieve next time, in the way a path gets clearer each time it is walked. And every failed attempt shows you precisely what you do not know, so the next ten minutes go where they are needed instead of being spread thinly over a whole chapter. The part students dislike is that it feels worse than rereading. You will get things wrong and the session will feel slow. That difficulty is the method working, not a sign that you are bad at it.

What does active recall look like in practice?

You do not need an app. Any of these counts, as long as the book is shut while you do it and you check your answer afterwards.

• Blurting: write the topic title on a blank page, write everything you can remember for five minutes, then open your notes and add what you missed in a different colour. The second colour is your revision list.
• Flashcards: a question on the front, a short answer on the back. Say or write the answer before you turn the card over. One fact per card.
• Diagrams from memory: draw and label the heart, a plant cell, a distance-time graph or a dot and cross diagram without looking, then correct it.
• Cover and explain: cover a worked maths example, solve it yourself, and compare line by line.
• Exam questions: the most realistic retrieval of all, because they test the wording and application the mark scheme wants.
• Teach it: explain the topic aloud to someone at home, or to the wall. Where you stumble is where the gap is.

What is spaced repetition?

Spaced repetition is the timing half of the method. Rather than studying a topic once for a long time, you study it briefly, leave it, and return after a gap. Dunlosky's summary of the evidence on distributed practice is that students retain knowledge and skills for longer when practice is spread out than when it is massed, even if the total time is identical. The gap matters because a little forgetting makes the next retrieval harder, and harder retrieval is what strengthens the memory. If you test yourself again ten minutes later, it is too easy to do any good. If you wait three months, there is nothing left to retrieve. You are aiming for the point where it takes effort but is still possible.

What spacing schedule should you use?

There is no single correct schedule, and you should be wary of anyone who gives exact numbers as if they were law. A simple pattern that fits a school term is to revisit a topic the next day, then about three days later, then a week later, then every two to three weeks until the exam. Stretch the gap when you get it right and shrink it when you do not. A shoebox does this well. Put new flashcards in the front section and test them daily. Cards you get right move back a section and are tested less often: every three days, then weekly, then fortnightly. Any card you get wrong goes back to the front. Flashcard apps automate the same idea.

What is interleaving, and should you bother?

Interleaving means mixing different kinds of problem in one session instead of doing twenty of the same type in a row. Dunlosky describes it as a promising strategy, particularly in maths: when every question on the page uses the same method, you never practise the step the exam actually tests, which is working out which method to use. For GCSE this is easy to apply. Once you can do a question type, stop practising it in isolation. Use mixed sets, such as ten maths questions from five different topics or a science paper section that jumps between units. Expect your score to dip compared with blocked practice. That dip is the cost of practising the real skill.

How do you start this week?

Pick one topic you have been taught recently in each of two subjects. Tonight, blurt each one for five minutes and correct it. Make ten flashcards from what you missed. Tomorrow, test the cards before you do anything else. In three days, answer exam questions on both topics without notes and mark them with the mark scheme. That is the whole system: retrieve, check, repair, wait, retrieve again. Everything else, including colour coding, neat notes and beautiful mind maps, is optional decoration around that loop.

Sources

John Dunlosky, “Strengthening the Student Toolbox”, American Educator (2013): A cognitive psychologist's review of which study strategies work: practice testing, distributed practice and interleaving, and why rereading and highlighting do less than students expect.