Learning spread over time is retained far better than the same total time massed together.
Ebbinghaus documented it in 1885 and it remains among the most robust findings in learning research. Spaced repetition software is its direct industrial application.
In practice
- A language app that shows a word again after a day, then three days, then a week, is doing the one thing that reliably works.
- A trainee who studies forty minutes daily outperforms one who studies six hours on Sunday, and the second feels more diligent.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Learning & Education
- Essay
- What works in learning, and what schools can and cannot change