https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3291279.3339411

San Diego State University

1. Introduction
2. Related Work
3. System Design and Development
4. Analysis and Results
5. Discussion
6. Limitations
7. Conclusion

A Spaced, Interleaved Retrieval Practice Tool
that is Motivating and Effective

Students delude that studying a day before the exam is more effective than a spaced practice, while the performance shows otherwise. There are several tools, (Soderstrom and Bjork) that help to retain information for a longer time but when it comes to initial learning they have a poor results: 

1. Retrieval practice (vs. passive review of previous content)
2. Spacing (vs. massing) study/practice
3. Interleaving (vs. blocking) distinct topics to study/practice
4. Generating (vs. being exposed to) the learning content
5. Varying (vs. keeping steady) the environmental context

The authors created: "created a learner-centered retrieval practice tool for an in-
troductory Python programming course that spaces practice and
interleaves topics." 
There were three research questions:

1. Do students space or mass their use of the tool?
2. Do students use the practice tool more than they were required to?
3. Does the practice tool usage correlate with higher final exam grades?


Introduction (A Spaced, Interleaved Retrieval Practice Tool that is Motivating and Effective)

1. Desirable Difficulties
2. Self-Determination Theory
3. Gameful Design
4. Prior Work on Practice Tools
5. Procrastination

Related Work (A Spaced, Interleaved Retrieval Practice Tool that is Motivating and Effective)

1. Underlying Platform
2. Basic Design: Retrieval Practice
3. Interleaving Algorithm
4. Grading System: per Day, not per Question
5. Progress Tracking and Celebration
6. Schedule Information to aid Metacognition

System Design and Development (A Spaced, Interleaved Retrieval Practice Tool that is Motivating and Effective)

1. RQ1: Do students space or mass their use of the tool? 2. RQ2: Do students use the practice tool more than they were required to? 3. RQ3: Does the practice tool usage correlate with higher final exam grades? 4. Distributions and Correlations 5. End of Course Survey

Analysis and Results (A Spaced, Interleaved Retrieval Practice Tool that is Motivating and Effective)

The evaluation of the practice tool provides evidence that spaced practice is effective for students. Notably, 32% of students used the practice tool for more days than required, supporting the idea that gameful design and the tool's grading system successfully overcame students' negative reactions to desirable difficulties. Furthermore, the total hours spent using the practice tool showed a positive correlation with final exam performance, yielding a 1.04% grade increase.

Discussion (A Spaced, Interleaved Retrieval Practice Tool that is Motivating and Effective)

1. May not Generalizable 
2. External Practice 
3. The effect of a particular kind of practice isn't well-separated


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