Talk:Desirable difficulty

Untitled
There is currently no wikipedia article devoted to desirable difficulties. This is an important topic in memory research that comes up again and again in different contexts. Various other wiki pages on memory research topics briefly mention desirable difficulties, but do not go into detail. This page will serve as a centralized location for information about desirable difficulties. (Psy250 jes85 (talk) 13:44, 18 April 2016 (UTC))

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 September 2021 and 13 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mec19011.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:00, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Outline
The plan for the structure of the page is as follows:

Lead section: summary and description of what desirable difficulties are, why they are important, and maybe mention a few examples.

Main section: break it down into various sections that each describe a specific common example of a desirable difficulty, providing some information about it and a link to the wiki page on that topic. Examples of this include the Testing Effect and the Spacing. Psy250 jes85 (talk) 13:48, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

I think you have a great outline for this section. Perhaps some of the examples you can include are with the photo experiment (massed vs. spaced practice) and administering cumulative exams in classes. Also, you can link this page to the Spacing Effect and Testing Effect pages. Ashley (talk) 17:34, 18 April 2016 (UTC)


 * First, well done taking this upon yourself to create this page from scratch! I'm interested in the specific section headings you are planning on including. It would definitely be worth while to cite some of the original research and discuss the evolution of the theory and how it has broadened it's applications over time. Adding an "Implications" section in order to give it real-world context would be helpful for readers who just skim the page. KieraMolloy18 (talk) 15:17, 19 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Great start on the page! I think the second paragraph ("Many tasks give the illusion...") has the potential to stand as its own section on metacognition discussing why students do not actively implement desirable difficulties into their independent studying. It is important to emphasize that not only do students find it easier to read, but also prefer to read over actively recalling information. This shows that we are poor judgers of our own metacognition. Another suggestion would be to the section on spacing and interleaving. You could go into more detail on how one would accomplish interleaving -- for example a tennis player might alternate between forehands, backhands, and volleys or a pianist would alternate between arpeggios, scales, and harmonics. So interleaving can have promising effects even if the alternations are within the same subject. This article goes into more detail. Devinrajan95 (talk) 05:03, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Adding a new page for this is a great idea. You could also turn it into a self-help page for students on learning how to study/learn. I would try and get this page linked/involved onto other major educational/learning pages (study skills - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Study_skills, the improving section of memorization - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorization, ect.) I would also make sure to add as many experiments that deal with these concepts as you can in order to gain credibility. As you probably know, our class notes are a great place to find some of the results to these major findings. Make sure to add the methods for the experiments you describe as the conceptualization of some of these sections are important for defining the sub-terms. Next, I'm not really sure how much information there is based on the history of desirable difficulties or who coined the term but it may be worth looking into. My guess is that some of these have been around for a very very long time. Also, make sure you mention feedback in the testing effect. Lastly, make sure you explain why desirable difficulties are important and "desirable". — Preceding unsigned comment added by RomainDecrop (talk • contribs) 15:26, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Updated
The page has now been updated with the information we have found and are wanting to convey, any feedback would be welcome. Thank you! Ceckersley (talk) 17:46, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Hello, I want to ask about the following sentence: While feedback is essentially, a surprising result found is that delaying feedback is better than receiving immediate feedback. What is feedback essentially? Me, Myself &#38; I (☮) (talk) 17:50, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't think you addressed this question?
 * you probably need a citation for the feedback claim Elizareader (talk) 03:00, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Overall, I think this page is great--especially considering it was built from scratch. Great work! My main suggestion for improvement would be to add some more supporting evidence in the examples section. The Make It Stick book had a lot of anecdotal and scientific evidence/examples, so that might be a good place to start looking. Jennjiyoun (talk) 03:13, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Regarding the final sentence in the introduction (just before the legend for the page's sections), I would recommend clarifying that the learning to which you refer is learning with desirable difficulties. Additionally, if you're going to make a claim here that the learning is better, I would suggest you cite some sort of study or supporting evidence to that effect. Jasonbrovich (talk) 03:37, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Potential Future Additions
Here are some additions we were unable to make in this iteration but would love to have others add in the future.

A section on how common practices such as highlighting/underlining and note taking can be altered to become desirable difficulties.

I like this idea a lot. If people were more aware of the benefits of desirable difficulties or even what they were, they would be more inclined to engage in such activity. Really good suggestion here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robertrohner (talk • contribs) 22:56, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Extending the implications section to include a few personal examples for how desirable difficulties have been applied by teachers and students.

A section on the history of desirable difficulties.

Finally extending the implications section to how desirable difficulties can help people working in industry and everyday jobs other than just students and teachers. Ceckersley (talk) 19:40, 30 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I think the last point you made above about having a section about "how desirable difficulties can help people working in industry and every day jobs" is an important one. A lot of the time examples of desirable difficulties are having to do with education and school work. I think it is important to make people realize that this method is not just an educational method, but as the article trys to convey, a psychological method that has many uses and multiple applications. I think by having a small blurb in the implications section as you have spoken about above will convey the message of desirable difficulties versatility quite well!Ospring1234 (talk) 04:11, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Additionally I believe a good idea would be including information on the evidence that is required by the US Department of Education to recommend practices like spacing and testing to teachers. For example, for spacing the department research has shown that delayed re-exposure to course material often increases the amount of information that students remember. The department rates the level of evidence for the strategy by examining the number of experimental classroom studies in addition to lab experiments. HalimahMohammed (talk) 02:55, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

A very small thing I would add is the idea that teachers should requires students to look at feedback. Students often are wrong in the ways they think about their thinking, and don't understand the benefit of the feedback. Suggesting teachers somehow mandate students to look at and correct their mistakes might be another suggestion you could add.Nicolette12345 (talk) 06:50, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

The Spacing and interleaving paragraph is an interesting read however it doesn't link to any further reading that could be done on the subject. I think this paragraph would benefit from an outside source that a reader could continue learning from. Mec19011 (talk) 22:10, 29 September 2021 (UTC)