Strategies that reduce fluency and increase perceived difficulty (e.g., self-testing, spaced practice) often yield superior long-term learning, contrary to student beliefs¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2015 · not yet checked against its sources · 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.

q2 i? Situations that increase processing fluency are widely believed by students to aid learning, yet strategies that decrease fluency and increase perceived difficulty often produce better long-term learning. → Andrew C. Butler & Shana K. Carpenter 2015

Evidence¶

Andrew C. Butler & Shana K. Carpenter 2015¶

Andrew C. Butler & Shana K. Carpenter. (2015). Separating Myth from Reality in Education: Introduction to the Special Issue. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-015-9344-0

q2 · i? · review · r2

The editorial reports, citing Finn and Tauber (2015), that fluency of processing has a "pervasive and misleading effect" on students' perceptions of learning, and that difficulty-increasing strategies "often lead to superior long-term learning."

"strategies and techniques that increase the perceived difficulty of learning and decrease the sense of fluency (e.g., self-testing and spaced practice) often lead to superior long-term learning"

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

Long-Term Memory — outcome: instruction changes it

Learners misjudge which learning strategies are effective — related
Learners Misjudge Spacing Benefits — related
Retrieval practice and spaced retrieval improve achievement and retention by medium amounts, while interleaving helps category learning only for some materials and blocking beats it for words — related
Spaced Practice Improves Retention — related
Fluent Illusions Mislead Self Assessment — related
Spaced Retrieval Improves Retention — related
Faster rate of learning may be negatively related to long-term retention (efficiency-effectiveness trade-off) — related

Page metadata

Field	Value
`type`	`claim`
`id`	`fluency-misleads-judgments-of-learning`
`title`	`Strategies that reduce fluency and increase perceived difficulty (e.g., self-testing, spaced practice) often yield superior long-term learning, contrary to student beliefs`
`description`	`Strategies that reduce fluency and increase perceived difficulty (e.g., self-testing, spaced practice) often yield superior long-term learning, contrary to student beliefs`
`status`	`review`
`evidence_strength`	`weak`
`newest_evidence`	`2015`
`generated`	by `process:wiki-ingest` on `2026-10-21`
`trust`	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
`sources`	1 — `andrew-c-butler-shana-k-carpenter-2015`

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