Repetition and active listening: the effects of spacing self-assessment questions

This study is concerned with the practical application of repetition effects in a classroom setting. In Expt 1 subjects listened to a short passage. At various points in the passage they were required to answer a self-assessment question (SAQ) which referred to an item of information in the immediately preceding portion of the text. Each SAQ was then repeated either immediately, or after one minute, two minutes, or four minutes. Three hours later subjects were given an unexpected recall test in which they attempted to recall the answers they had given earlier. The recall data showed that accuracy increased as a function of lag between presentation and repetition of SAQs. Experiment 2 examined whether the effect of lag in Expt 1 was due to the increased effort that might be involved in answering an SAQ repeated after a longer lag. The data showed that increasing the lag between an SAQ and its target information did not affect subsequent delayed recall. Practical aspects of the data are considered.