In the article Distributed Practice in Verbal Recall Tasks: A Review and Quantitative Synthesis  (Cepeda, Pashler, Vul, Wixted, & Rohrer, 2006), the authors review more than 250 studies on how the timing of study sessions affects memory and learning. Their meta-analysis provides strong evidence for the spacing effect  — the finding that spreading study sessions over time leads to significantly better long-term retention than massed practice, or “cramming.” The researchers sho

In The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning  (Karpicke & Roediger, 2008), the researchers demonstrate that the very act of trying to recall information—known as retrieval practice—is crucial for effective learning. The study challenges the traditional assumption that spending more time rereading material leads to better learning outcomes. In their experiment, participants learned pairs of foreign-language words under different conditions: some repeatedly studied the