Instruction meets experience: Using theory- and experience-based methods to promote the use of desirable difficulties

Background: In higher education, students often avoid desirably difficult learning strategies, such as interleaved practice, thereby limiting their learning outcomes. Aim: We studied why students (under)utilize interleaved practice and whether an intervention that combines theory- and experience-based support can improve their immediate and delayed strategy decisions. Sample: Higher education students (N = 120) from the Prolific participant pool were recruited. Methods: They were randomized into four conditions: Theory-based support, experience-based support, full-treatment, and no support. The theory-based support was refutations that challenged students’ erroneous beliefs about learning strategies and warned them about inaccurate monitoring of effort and learning. The experience-based support was metacognitive prompts in the form of visual feedback. This visual prompt showed students the development of their perceived effort and learning across time. Results: Pre-intervention use of interleaved practice was 18%. Students experienced more effort and low learning, at least initially, when using interleaved practice, although actual learning was enhanced. Full-treatment and refutations increased the use of interleaved practice significantly more compared to the other conditions: From 24% to 88% and from 20% to 70%, respectively. Yet, refutations were the necessary and sufficient condition for this improvement. Conclusion: Refutations and visual prompts form a strong strategy intervention that improves the self-regulated use of interleaved practice in immediate and delayed-transfer learning tasks. But, refutations are the key ingredient for this improvement.