This paper presents the results from two experiments that examined practice effects on skill acquisition, learning outcome, retention, and sensitivity to relearning. In Experiment 1, the learning criterion task was an intelligent tutoring system teaching flight engineering knowledge and skills. The system was divided into two main curriculum sections, with two practice conditions per section: abbreviated and extended. Thus there were a total of four practice conditions differing only in the number of practice problems requiring solution across problem sets. Experiment 1 showed that subjects in the more abbreviated conditions completed the curriculum significantly faster than did subjects in more extended conditions, but at the expense of greater errors and latencies during problem solution within the tutor. Despite these acquisition differences, groups performed the same across all learning outcome measures. Experiment 2 examined the effects of practice condition on retention and sensitivity to relearning after 2 years. Although the sample size was fairly small, investigators found evidence for practice effects on long-term retention but not in the predicted direction. In terms of sensitivity to relearning measure, the groups did not differ. Implications of these finding for optimizing training are discussed.
Abstract