The Pain Teaches Me: Desirable Difficulties

No Pains, No gains. 
–Robert Herrick (1650)

It's a simple matter of logic. 
I'm not like other people. 
I can't stand pain, it hurts me. 
–Daffy Duck (1961)

Pop Quiz: We all have implicit theories about the conditions under which learning is maximized. Let's make your theory explicit. For each item below, which scenario will lead to more robust learning?

	Option A	or	Option B
1.	Studying in the same room where you are going to take the test		Studying in various environments
2.	Solving a bunch of problems that are similar		Switching between different types of problems
3.	Cramming for an exam the night before		Studying a little bit over a longer period of time
4.	Reading and rereading material until it becomes familiar		Reading material once and quizzing yourself
5.	Reading a text that contains gaps in the reasoning		Reading a highly coherent text that fills in all the gap

Recalibrating Our Intuitions

Sometimes our intuitions about what is best for learning are mis-calibrated. The reason is likely due to a distinction between storage strength and retrieval strength [1]. Storage strength is how well a memory is embedded within a larger network of related concepts. Retrieval strength refers to how quick or easily you can recall an item from long-term memory.  

When learning scenarios boost retrieval strength, we might be tempted to believe that we will remember the same material days, weeks, or maybe even months later. However, storage strength is more likely to be related to our successful recall. 

How, then, can we design learning events so that storage strength is maximized? One way is to introduce what is called a desirable difficulty into the learning situation. The difficulty is said to be "desirable" when it leads to more robust learning. Here are some desirable difficulties that we can introduce into the learning process.

Consistent vs. Inconsistent Settings

There is a semi-famous memory study where experimenters asked volunteers to memorize a list of words in one of two settings [2]. The first group studied their list on dry land. The second group donned scuba gear and jumped in a pool to study their list. Then the experimenters altered where the volunteers had to recall their list. The consistent group studied and recalled their list in the same setting (either both on land or both underwater) and the inconsistent group switched the context of study and recall (e.g., if they studied underwater, then they recalled on land). Guess what the experimenters found? The consistent group had better recall than those who switched settings.  

But what if we alter the amount of study that occurs? In other words, what if we asked our brave group of volunteers to study their list twice, either in the same setting or two different settings? Who would have better recall then? It turns out that studying the same material in two different settings provides a slight edge in performance. Why is this the case? It might be because the students are forced to generalize their knowledge so that idiosyncratic environmental cues are not used to help recall the information. 

Blocked vs. Intermixed Problem Solving

The above studies manipulated the context of study and retrieval. What if we manipulate the material instead? It might seem on the surface that you would want to study the same thing over and over until it becomes proceduralized. A more difficult study scenario would be to take concepts taught in different lessons and intermix them. For example, suppose you are teaching separate lessons on perimeter, area, and volume. Should you ask your students to solve a block of perimeter problems, then a block of area problems, and then a block of volume problems? Or should you teach all the lessons and then have students solve a mixture of problems from all three lessons? Suggestive evidence from a study that contrasted blocked versus intermixed problems found a consistent advantage for the intermixed problems [3].

Mass vs. Distributed Practice

As we saw in an earlier post, our memory seems to be designed such that information that isn't required tends to drop off in terms of its retrieval strength. Names of people who we haven't seen in five years don't come to mind as readily as the name of someone you saw last week. We also know that an attempt to retrieve a memory can help to reinforce that item in long-term memory. So, how do we optimize our study so that we counterbalance memory decay with making sure that we aren't wasting time on items that are already known? The best method is to increase the delay between study sessions, which will lead to a longer retention interval [4]. 

Presentation vs. Generation

When trying to learn something new, should I read and reread the material while taking notes? Or should I spend less time reading and taking notes and try testing myself instead? Perhaps a counterintuitive finding from the memory literature is that attempting to remember something has the effect of increasing that memory's strength. Therefore, it might make sense to spend less time reading and more time quizzing yourself.  

Why might this be the case? We read earlier about the generation effect, which states that memories are more likely to be recalled when we create them ourselves. When we quiz ourself on the material that we just read, it pushes our cognitive processing of the text toward the generation end of the spectrum (with the other end being repeated exposure). 

Incomplete vs. Complete Text Material

Do you learn better from a text passage that is complete or incomplete? It turns out that this is a trick question because it depends on your level of prior knowledge [5]. If you are a relative expert in a domain, you tend to learn more from an incomplete text because you must actively try to make sense of the material. If it is a more complete text, then the presentation becomes tedious and you tend to passively process the information. A low-knowledge reader, on the other hand, does not have the background to piece together an incomplete text. Instead, they need the extra information to help connect sentences together, as well as link together higher-order concepts.

The STEM Connection

Learning is hard. Why would we want to make it even more difficult? The main reason is to ensure that we don't fall into the trap of mistaking retrieval strength for storage strength. When we recognize that the goal of a learning event is to create a durable memory trace, then we can intentionally make our learning more difficult. Like exercise, our hard work will be rewarded when our learning withstands the test of time. 


Share and Enjoy!

Dr. Bob

For More Information

[1] Bjork, E. L., & Bjork, R. A. (2011). Making things hard on yourself, but in a good way: Creating desirable difficulties to enhance learning. Psychology and the real world: Essays illustrating fundamental contributions to society, 56-64.

[2] Godden, D; Baddeley, A. (1975). Context dependent memory in two natural environments. British Journal of Psychology 66 (3): 325–331.

[3] Rohrer, D., & Taylor, K. (2007). The shuffling of mathematics practice problems im- proves learning. Instructional Science, 35, 481–498.

[4] Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354-380.

[5] McNamara, D. S., Kintsch, E., Songer, N. B., & Kintsch, W. (1996). Are good texts always better? Interactions of text coherence, background knowledge, and levels of understanding in learning from text. Cognition and Instruction, 14(1), 1-43.