The Value of Applied Research: Retrieval Practice Improves Classroom Learning and Recommendations from a Teacher, a Principal, and a Scientist

Over the course of a 5-year applied research project with more than 1,400 middle school students, evidence from a number of studies revealed that retrieval practice in authentic classroom settings improves long-term learning (Agarwal et al. 2009; McDaniel et al., Journal of Educational Psychology 103:399–414, 2011; McDaniel et al. 2012; Roediger et al., Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 17:382–395, 2011a). Retrieval practice, or the use of quizzes and exams to engage and enhance retrieval processes, has been widely established as an effective strategy for facilitating learning in laboratory settings (e.g., Roediger et al. 2011c). In this article, we review recent findings from applied research that demonstrate that retrieval practice enhances long-term classroom learning, delayed quizzes are particularly potent for retention, quizzes benefit students’ transfer to novel quiz items, and quizzes with feedback improve students’ learning and metacognitive awareness. In addition to generating evidence to support retrieval-based learning, these applied research studies also enhanced the professional development of the teachers, administrators, and scientists involved in the project. In this article, it is our hope that by sharing what we have learned from a variety of perspectives, applied scientific research in K-12 classrooms will continue to be explored and generated at local, state, and national levels, improving student learning and educational decision-making.     

What ISPI and performance improvement mean to me

This year, the International Society for Performance Improvement celebrates its 50th anniversary. Over the past half‐century, our field has moved from programmed learning to programmed instruction to performance improvement. This new column reflects on 50 years of member, industry, and Society memories and what it has meant to each of this column's contributors. If you would like to add to the discussion, please contact the PI journal editor: joandessinger@ispi.org.     

A walk on the human performance side—Part 1

Using their “license to snoop,” performance architects uncover the nuances of how work gets done in an organization. This is the first of a four‐part series in which each article will present a different organizational level. Typical performance issues and opportunities for each level will be discussed, and helpful models and tools will be shared. Part 1 examines the worker/individual/team level and explores how to use a performance map to help identify the performance improvement needs of individuals or work groups.     

The problem of bullying in schools and the promise of positive behaviour supports

Bullying in schools is recognised as a global problem. In the USA, school shootings and increasing school aggression focused research on the causes of bullying and interventions that could reduce or eliminate bullying behaviours. A variety of bullying programs have generated mixed results with some actually increasing bullying behaviours. There are consistent limitations on the research, including problems of definition, scope, generalisability, complexity and philosophy and model, but slowly, consensus on these issues is being reached. Positive behaviour supports (PBIS) in schools provides a framework for comprehensive behavioural management. PBIS is being implemented across the USA as part of a national response to intervention (RTI) model. PBIS might offer an opportunity to address some of these persistent problems and to avoid others altogether. This literature review considers the nature of the problems limiting success of bullying prevention programs and will offer recommendations for potential solutions within a PBIS framework.     

Children are not like older adults: a diffusion model analysis of developmental changes in speeded responses

Children (n = 130; M(age) = 8.51-15.68 years) and college-aged adults (n = 72; M(age) = 20.50 years) completed numerosity discrimination and lexical decision tasks. Children produced longer response times (RTs) than adults. R. Ratcliff's (1978) diffusion model, which divides processing into components (e.g., quality of evidence, decision criteria settings, nondecision time), was fit to the accuracy and RT distribution data. Differences in all components were responsible for slowing in children in these tasks. Children extract lower quality evidence than college-aged adults, unlike older adults who extract a similar quality of evidence as college-aged adults. Thus, processing components responsible for changes in RTs at the beginning of the life span are somewhat different from those responsible for changes occurring with healthy aging.     

Looking at debit and credit card fraud

This article, written jointly by a mathematician and a barrister, looks at some of the statistical issues raised by court cases based on fraud involving chip and PIN cards. It provides examples and insights that statistics teachers should find helpful.     

Progress of pupils attending resourced provision for specific learning difficulties

An analysis of the improvement in attainments of 109 students attending specialist-resourced provision for specific learning difficulties (SpLD) attached to mainstream secondary schools was conducted as they progressed through Key Stages 3 and 4. Steady progress was made in terms of reading accuracy, reading comprehension, spelling ability and rate of reading. The ratio gains for these skills varied from 0.68 to 0.91. Additionally, self-efficacy was monitored and also showed a slight improvement. This study therefore provides some suggestion of the progress that might reasonably be expected of pupils starting secondary school with significant literacy difficulties.     

Football Hooliganism Revisited: A Belated Reply to Patrick Murphy,Eric Dunning and Joseph Maguire

In the light of the republication of my original article on ‘Football hooliganism in England before 1914’ in the volume Sports History: Critical Concepts, edited by Wray Vamplew and published by Routledge in 2014, I offer here a belated reply to the counter-critique of my arguments given by Patrick Murphy, Eric Dunning and Joseph Maguire in their article in the International Journal of the History of Sport in 1998. I regard this debate as still relevant to the academic discussion of the history of association football, particularly the concern about the social and historical origins of football hooliganism within an English context, despite the topic being rather less fashionable than it once was. I believe that my original article, and this reply to Murphy, Dunning and Maguire, make a contribution to the ongoing debate within sports history over the relevance of using particular forms of sociological theory (in this case, Norbert Elias' concept of a ‘civilising process’ operating in European history from the middle ages) to explain historical phenomenon. This paradigm, it is argued, distorts the historical interpretation of sport by the use of such a priori sociological arguments.