Distributing drill repetitions in time gives better learning results than making many repetitions in succession¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · theoreticalr2·q1
Currency · newest study 1916 · checked against its sources 2026-10-24 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q1 i? Investigations on learning show that well-distributed repetitions in drill work give better results than many repetitions made in succession. → J. D. Heilman 1916
Evidence¶
J. D. Heilman 1916¶
J. D. Heilman. (1916). Psychology in the Schoolroom. The Journal of Educational Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0073918
q1 · i? · theoretical · r2
The article cites investigations on learning as the basis for this teaching principle, reporting no effect size or sample details; it states distributed repetitions "gives better results than when many of them are made in succession."
"In drill work the repetitions should be well distributed in time, for investigations on learning have shown that this gives better results than when many of them are made in succession."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- With incidental orienting tasks that focus processing on individual words and give no incentive to form associations, distributed presentations produce better free recall than massed presentations — related
- Drill classes gained 24.2 percent in total points in the second study, with per-operation gains of 18.5 to 34.2 percent — related
- Spaced Retrieval Improves Retention — a broader claim this one bears on
- Distributed presentations are recalled better than massed presentations in free recall (the spacing effect), and requiring likelihood ratings does not alter this effect — a broader claim this one bears on
- In Experiment 1, the type-of-recall by varied-constant by distribution interaction was significant, with a massed-distributed effect only in constant cued recall and a distribution effect in both free-recall conditions — related
- Second-study results corroborate the first study despite a shorter drill period of 20 versus 30 recitations — related
- Drill classes improved from two to three times as much as non-drill classes in arithmetic fundamentals — related
- Reading a selection through as a whole gives better study results than studying it part by part — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
distributed-drill-repetitions-better-than-succession |
title |
Distributing drill repetitions in time gives better learning results than making many repetitions in succession |
description |
Distributing drill repetitions in time gives better learning results than making many repetitions in succession |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
weak |
newest_evidence |
1916 |
source_checked |
2026-10-24 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-24 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — j-d-heilman-1916 |
Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.