Skip to Content
Visible Learning™
Visible Learning MetaX™
Version 1.4 – Updated February 2026

Spaced vs. mass practice

Overview

  • Influence: Spaced vs. mass practice
  • Domain: Student Learning Strategies
  • Sub-Domain: Learning strategies
  • Potential to Accelerate Student Achievement: Potential to considerably accelerate
  • Influence Definition: The claim is that students are better able to commit information to memory when they study that information in spaced (or distributed) intervals rather than all at once in a "massed" interval. Spaced practices involve practice broken up into a number of shorter sessions, over a longer period of time. Massed practice consists of fewer, longer training sessions. Ebbinghaus's Forgetting Curve displays the pattern of the number of spaced practices increase, so does the amount of information retained each time.

Evidence

  • Number of meta-analyses: 7
  • Number of studies: 586
  • Number of students: 167,763
  • Number of effects: 1,202
  • Weighted mean effect size: 0.62
  • Robustness index: 5

Meta-Analyses

Meta-Analyses
Journal Title Author Article Name Year Published Variable Number of Studies Number of Students Number of Effects Effect Size
Research quarterly for exercise and sport Lee & Genovese Distribution of practice in motor skill acquisition: Learning and performance effects reconsidered 1988 Spaced vs. massed practice 52 NA 52 0.96
Journal of Applied Psychology Donovan & Radosevich A meta-analytic review of the distribution of practice effect: Now you see it, now you don't 1999 Spaced vs. massed practice 63 NA 112 0.46
Journal of Consumer Research Janiszewski, Noel & Sawyer A meta-analysis of the spacing effect in verbal learning: Implications for research on advertising repetition and consumer memory 2003 Spaced vs. massed practice 61 NA 484 0.72
Nature: Science of Learning Hattie & Donoghue Learning strategies: A synthesis and conceptual model. 2016 Distributed practice 150 152,952 150 0.85
Psychological bulletin Cepeda, Pashler, Vul, Wixted & Rohrer Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis.  2009 Spaced vs. massed practice 184 14,811 317 0.27
Educational Psychology Review Latimer, Peyre & Ramus A meta-analytic review of the benefit of spacing out retrieval practice episodes on retention.  2021 Spaced vs. massed retrieval 39 NA 39 1.01
Language Learning Kim & Webb The effects of spaced practice on second language learning: A meta-analysis.  2022 Spaced in L2 learning 37 NA 48 0.58
TOTAL/AVERAGE 586 167,763 1,202 0.69
Back to top