Where and how to learn: The interactive benefits of contextual variation, restudying, and retrieval practice for learning

Abstract

Students are often advised to do all of their studying in one good place, but restudying to-be-learned material in a new context can enhance subsequent recall. We examined whether there are similar benefits for testing. In Experiment 1 (n = 106), participants studied a 36-word list and 48 hr later—when back in the same or a new context—either restudied or recalled the list without feedback. After another 48 hr, all participants free-recalled the list in a new context. Experiment 2 (n = 203) differed by having the testing-condition participants restudy the list before being tested. Across both experiments, testing in a new context reduced recall, which carried over to the final test, whereas restudying in a new context did not impair (and in Experiment 2, significantly enhanced) recall. These findings reveal critical interactions between contextual-variation and retrieval-practice effects, which we interpret as consistent with a distribution-of-memory-strengths framework.