Spaced practice is a learning technique that distributes study sessions over increasing intervals of time, exploiting the psychological spacing effect to strengthen long-term memory retention. Parameters: interval schedule (expanding, fixed, or adaptive), number of repetitions, domain of material, and retention target. Persistence mechanism: cognitive science research, educational practice, and curriculum design transmit the technique across generations of teachers and learners. The method persists because the spacing effect is reliably reproducible and the technique is taught in pedagogy programs worldwide. [formal: discretio | substrate: behavior | horizon: a life | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]
Accepted ontology entry
spaced-practice
Spaced practice is a learning technique that distributes study sessions over increasing intervals of time, exploiting the psychological spacing effect to strengthen long-term memory retention. Parameters: interval schedule (expanding, fixe…
Definition
Why it is in scope
A human-made learning technique where study or practice sessions are intentionally distributed over time, built to persist through instructional design and cognitive science research that demonstrates its superiority over massed practice for long-term retention
Names and aliases
- spaced-practiceen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cmrquqava0afpd1nli3a0m1paDEPENDS_ON →
Spaced practice requires scheduling to operate: the technique of distributing learning across time intervals depends on scheduling those intervals. Remove scheduling and spaced practice cannot maintain its temporal structure.
- cmrhajc2b015x8aehc613gx7cSERVES →
Spaced-practice schedules review intervals to optimize long-term retention. Its designed purpose is to further learning — the spacing effect is a learning technique maintained for the sake of knowledge acquisition.
- cmrysnne801xlekkxqxo7iqrmINSTANCE_OF →
Spaced-practice is a specific kind of learning-strategy: it organizes review intervals to optimize retention, which is a concrete instance of a learning strategy. Per Law 11e, the nearest kind for spaced-practice is learning-strategy.
Relations to this entry
No accepted relations in this direction.
Record identity
- Created
- Jul 18, 2026, 4:21 PM UTC
- Content hash
- d2ae05b03ad7986f2a4dc743863e9ff3d09ac7abca900e3597adb4e113833b6f