Despite all the evidence showing spaced retrieval and revision is better for long term learning than cramming. Students, even if they know this to be true, typically ignore it, particularly low prior performing students. That clearly irks (rightly so!) research types, who look to have been in turbo mode attempting to figure out ways to get students to follow the science and get better grades.
One study, from Nature, investigates how an approach designed to incentivise spacing called “Counting Days”, that awards points for practice on different days, rather than per question, significantly increased exam scores, especially benefiting those with lower prior academic performance.
Another study that is nicely summarised here by Dr Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel of Glasgow University, revealed that whilst students believe spacing is the right thing to do, their time management skills let them down in actually doing it. Cue Dr. K-T designing a time skills management overview to help students optimise their learning potential. It’s designed for psychology undergrads but with some AI assistance (is that just such standard practice everywhere it’s now not even worth mentioning?) we’ve re-hashed it into something you may want to use with your GCSE students. If you are a Thinking School Network member then drop us a line and we’ll send it over.