Memory and Metamemory Considerations in the Training of Human Beings

Bjork, Robert A. (1994) 10.7551/mitpress/4561.003.0011

Metacognition: Knowing about Knowing

Brief Origin of the desirable-difficulties idea: conditions that speed acquisition during training (massed practice, constant conditions, frequent feedback) often impair long-term retention and transfer, and learners mistake fluency during training for learning. The section "Reducing Feedback to the Learner" (p. 191) summarizes Schmidt's findings that less frequent feedback hurts training performance but improves retention. Cite for the claim that too much feedback, too early, can hinder a learner.

Keywords desirable difficulties, learning, memory, metamemory, training, feedback, transfer

Dated: 10/14/26
Publish: 10/15/26
Reading time: ~1 min read

Reducing Feedback During Training Can Be Beneficial

Don't correct people immediately. Let 'em struggle! They need to have their own failures.

Reducing Feedback to the Learner Until recently, a common generalization about motor skills was that providing external feedback to the learner facilitates the acquisition of skills, and that any means of improving such augmented feedback - by, for example, making it more immediate, more frequent, or more accurate - helps learning and performance. Recently, however, Richard Schmidt and his collaborators (see, e.g., Schmidt, 1991; Schmidt, Young, Swinnen, & Shapiro, 1989; Winstein & Schmidt, 1990) have found that - as in the case of the other manipulations summarized in this section - reducing the frequency of feedback makes life more difficult for the learner during training, but can enhance posttraining performance.