Elsevier

Human Movement Science

Volume 19, Issue 5, November 2000, Pages 737-760
Human Movement Science

Spacing practice sessions across days benefits the learning of motor skills

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-9457(00)00021-XGet rights and content

Abstract

The effects of distributing practice sessions across days, compared to within days, on the learning of motor skills were examined. In Experiment 1, a continuous dynamic balance task was practiced in two sessions of seven trials each. For one group, sessions were separated by 20 min while for the other group the sessions were separated by 24 h. In Experiment 2, three variations of a key-press timing task were practiced in three sessions, one session for each task variation. Again, practice for one group was distributed within days and the other across days. In both experiments, a retention test was administered 24 h after the completion of practice. The results indicated that spacing practice sessions over relatively long intervals (days) resulted in the enhancement of performance during the remaining practice sessions and enhanced learning as assessed by the delayed retention test. The results are consistent with the memory consolidation hypothesis and suggest that this interval may play a substantial role in the learning of motor skills.

Section snippets

Experiment 1

The purpose of Experiment 1 was to determine the impact of spacing practice sessions across days on the performance and learning of a continuous balance task. Consistent with the tenets of the memory consolidation hypothesis and the findings of Baddeley and Longman (1978), spacing practice across days should result in enhanced performance and learning (memory development) compared to practice sessions which are spaced only relatively short periods of time apart (e.g., 20 min). However, it

Experiment 2

The purpose of Experiment 2 was to extend the findings from Experiment 1 by determining the generalizability of the “day” effect to discrete tasks. For this purpose, a discrete timing task, that had been utilized a number of times in previous research (e.g., Lai and Shea, 1998, Wulf et al., 1994) and shown to be sensitive to various practice manipulations, was chosen. Lee and Genovese (1988) argued that, in general, the practice distribution literature in the motor domain tended not to reveal

General discussion

In this study, we examined the impact of spacing practice sessions across days relative to spacing practice sessions within a day on stabiliometer (Experiment 1) and key-press timing (Experiment 2) tasks. The results of a limited amount of previous research in the motor domain (e.g., Ammons, 1950, Baddeley and Longman, 1978, Brashers-Krug et al., 1996, Murphy, 1916) suggests that distributing practice sessions across relatively long intervals (e.g., days) may significantly benefit learning

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