Hoàng Long, Introduction to Psychology, Final paper, Journal Article Report on the paper:
O'Day, G. M., & Karpicke, J. D. (2021). Comparing and combining retrieval practice and concept mapping. Journal of Educational Psychology, 113(5), 986.
This study explores whether combining retrieval practice and concept mapping can enhance learning more than retrieval practice alone. In two experiments, students are divided into four groups. One group spends time rereading the text (control condition), and three condition groups: practice retrieval (by freely recalling the texts of what they know), create concept maps (to find the main concepts of the text and draw a map to show the relationships among those ideals), and most importantly, the combination group (use the practice retrieval and concept map to study the text). The objective of this study is to see the difference among four groups of students and how well students remember the knowledge one week after.
Finding effective ways to remember information is an essential question for students and educators. Over the past decade, there has been a dramatic increase study of retrieval practice (Karpicke, 2017). Figure 1 shows the number of papers on retrieval practice each year retrieved from a search of Web of Science.
Figure 1
However, there are few studies investigating the combination of the retrieval method with other study methods. Therefore, in the literature review, the researcher revised several studies to see how the combination enhanced student learning.
Most of the literature review of this study analyzes studies that use retrieval practice combined with other learning methods. However, to understand the content, I will quickly review retrieval practice and elaborative encoding and how effective those study strategies are on student learning. I have read additional resources that the researcher cites in the paper.
Retrieval practice happens when learners retrieve or recall their learned knowledge (Karpicke, 2017). There are many ways to recall knowledge, whether by doing a test or free recall - where the learner spends time trying to write out everything they remember. One of the effects of retrieval practice is to help students improve retention of what they have learned. The classic experiment by Hanawalt (1937) found that retrieval helps learners remember information much better. The researcher experimented with two groups. One group only reviewed knowledge once, and the other retrieved it several times: immediately, one day, one week, one month, and two months later. The researcher tracks the forgetting curve between two experiments (Figure 2). This result is also similar to some more modern studies; for example, Roediger and Karpicke (2006) conducted research to see that when learners repeatedly recall the texts without ever rereading, they still improved long-term learning.
Figure 2: shows that repeated recall helps increase the retention of information; the repeated recall group still retains much of what they learn, while with a single recall condition, knowledge will gradually be forgotten over time.
The second theory that the researcher refers to is elaborative encoding, the process in which the reader will organize and arrange information to store information more effectively. Elaborative encoding has the potential to help learners memorize and recall information better. Because the way information is processed affects how well it is remembered. According to Bradshaw and Anderson (1982), meaningful processing with well-structured and highly elaborated will be better recalled than unelaborated or poorly integrated one.
One of the elaborative encoding methods is concept mapping. With concept mapping, learners will look at a text, from which they select the main concepts, and try to connect them using arrows. Learners can specify the relationship between two concepts by writing content for these arrows. Concept mapping requires students to organize information and combine it in a way that differs from the original text. Concept mapping creates a structure for knowledge, making it easier for learners to recall information (Hunt, 2012).
Both elaborative encoding and retrieval practice have the potential to enhance learning. Researchers have also suggested some hypotheses about the potential of combining these two methods. Concept mapping may encourage better encoding of information. Thus, learners will remember information more effectively. For example, instead of learners only remembering individual pieces of information, they can remember those pieces of information through the content and the relation in concept mapping. It also encourages diverse learning, where learners use learning material in different ways (Carpenter, 2017).
In the next part of the study, the researcher summarizes existing studies on the combination of Retrieval practice and other learning methods.
| Research | Objective | Result |
|---|---|---|
| McDaniel & Pressley, 1984 | Retrieval practice combined with an elaborative encoding technique known as the keyword method. | The combination did not provide significant benefits compared to retrieval practice alone |
| Karpicke and Smith, 2012 | The retrieval practice combined with note-taking | Retrieval practice conditions better perform than taking notes. The combined condition provided no additional benefits. |
| Karpicke and Blunt (2011) | Students read an educational text and create a concept map as an elaborative study activity or practice retrieval by free recall | Retrieval practice enhanced long-term retention compared to concept mapping. |
| Blunt and Karpicke (2014) | Students create concept maps or write responses in paragraphs while viewing texts. Later, they complete the same activities without the texts present as retrieval practice tasks. | Practicing retrieval in either format, by creating concept maps or by writing paragraphs, enhanced retention on a one-week delayed test |