Abstract Book of the 9th International Conference on New Approaches in Education
Year: 2025
[PDF]
Cognitive Psychology Researched Practices that Support Increased Long-Term Memory and The Transfer of Knowledge
Maureen Bunney
ABSTRACT:
Formal education has followed the same basic design since the late 1800s. Most courses are structured around massed practice, culminating in unit or semester exams without formal interim testing or opportunities for retrieval and practice (Tyack & Cuban, 2009).
This long-standing structure supports learner acquisition of content in the short term. Students who learn through massed practice often perform well on unit exams. However, this type of structure does not support the creation of long-term memories of learned content. Nor does it develop the skill of using learned content in new or different contexts.
Both of which are critical for more complex domains, higher level course work and the development of learner expertise (Brown, 2014). The objective of this research is to understand which cognitive researched practices best support increased long term memory and the transfer of knowledge to new contexts. Through a review of over twelve research papers, low cost, and easy to implement evidence-based practices are identified and explained.
Keywords: Increase knowledge retention, knowledge transfer, spaced retrieval, distributed practice, the testing effect, trial-and-error learning and concept mapping