Retrieval practice improves delayed but not immediate performance, consistent with a desirable-difficulties explanation¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · review r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2026 · checked against its sources 2026-10-23 (automated, 2 of 2 entries) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? A commentary reports that, in Corral and Carpenter's (2025) experiment, retrieval practice improved statistics concept learning only when assessed after a delay, with the benefit dependent on the amount of practice during acquisition. → Katharina Scheiter 2026 q2 i? Retrieval practice embedded in worked examples (predicting upcoming problem-solving steps) produced lasting learning effects. → Katharina Scheiter 2026 (2)

Evidence¶

Katharina Scheiter 2026¶

Katharina Scheiter, Alexander Renkl. (2026). On the challenges of investigating lasting learning: A commentary. Learning and Instruction 105 (2026) 102417. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2026.102417

q2 · i? · theoretical · r3

This is a commentary with no data of its own: it summarises Corral and Carpenter (2025), a separate experiment on acquisition of basic statistics concepts, so this entry is indirect evidence of that study. The commentary reports that the lasting-learning effect depended on the amount of practice during acquisition, and interprets the delayed-only benefit as aligning with a desirable-difficulties explanation, retrieval practice improving performance "only when assessed in a delayed fashion, but not when it was measured immediately after learning". Its Table 1 labels the effect on the criterial tests "medium-to-large" in words; no numeric effect size is printed, so impact is coded i?.

"Corral and Carpenter (2025) provided evidence for lasting learning regarding the acquisition of basic concepts in statistics, which was dependent on the amount of practicing during the acquisition phase, however. Moreover, their findings align with a desirable-difficulties explanation (E.L. Bjork & R.A. Bjork & Bjork, 2011) in that retrieval practice improved performance only when assessed in a delayed fashion, but not when it was measured immediately after learning."

Katharina Scheiter 2026 (2)¶

Katharina Scheiter, Alexander Renkl. (2026). On the challenges of investigating lasting learning: A commentary. Learning and Instruction 105 (2026) 102417. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2026.102417

q2 · i? · review · r2

The commentary summarizes a study in which retrieval conditions had students "attempting to identify each upcoming problem-solving step prior to reviewing it" in subsequent worked examples, yielding lasting learning effects. No effect size is printed in this passage.

"The study by van den Broek et al. (2025) also yielded lasting learning effects of retrieval practice. In the retrieval conditions, students were asked to retrieve knowledge from a previously studied example by attempting to identify each upcoming problem-solving step prior to reviewing it in the two subsequently presented examples."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Problem solving after acquisition outperformed example study at a one-week delayed posttest but not immediately — 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
• Retrieval practice improves long-term retention — possibly the same claim (merge candidate)
• A systematic review of 50 classroom experiments found retrieval practice yields medium-to-large benefits in most cases, but only 6% were conducted in non-WEIRD countries — related