title: The effect of selected "desirable difficulties" on the ability to recall anatomy information.
abstract: "Desirable difficulties" is a theory from cognitive science used to promote learning in a variety of contexts. The basic premise is that creating a cognitively challenging environment at the learning acquisition phase, by actively engaging learners in the retrieval of to-be-learned materials, promotes long-term retention. In this study, the degree of desirable difficulties was varied to identify how cognitively challenging the learning acquisition phase must be to benefit university-level students' learning of anatomy concepts. This is important to investigate as applied studies of desirable difficulties are less frequent than laboratory-based studies and the implementation of this principle may need to be tailored to the specific field of study, such as anatomy. As such, a read-read-read-read (R-R-R-R) condition was compared to read-generate-read-generate (R-G-R-G) and read-test-read-test (R-T-R-T) conditions. The three conditions varied in terms of how effortful the retrieval task was during the learning acquisition phase. R-R-R-R required little effort because participants passively read the materials four times. R-G-R-G required some effort to generate a response as participants completed a word fragment task during the learning acquisition phase. R-T-R-T was thought to be most demanding as participants performed a free recall task twice during the learning phase. With regard to the absolute amount of anatomy information recalled, the R-T-R-T condition was superior at both immediate and delayed (one week) assessment points. Thus, instructors and learners of anatomy would benefit from embedding more free recall components, or self-testing, into university-level course work or study practices.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health and Kinesiology, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia.
authors.forename: John L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Dobson
authors.affiliation: Department of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia.
authors.forename: Tracy
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Linderholm
mesh_terms: D000715:Anatomy / Q000193:education*; D003071:Cognition; D003479:Curriculum; D004521:Educational Measurement; D004522:Educational Status; D006801:Humans; D011939:Mental Recall; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D015397:Program Evaluation; D011897:Random Allocation; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods*; D058013:Test Taking Skills; D013997:Time Factors; D014495:Universities
keywords: allied health education; desirable difficulties; generation effect; gross anatomy education; knowledge recall; learning; retrieval practice; testing; undergraduate education