Cognitive scientists explain why the study methods that feel most productive tend to work least well.
Two memory researchers and a storyteller make the case for retrieval, spacing, and interleaving — and against rereading, massed practice, and the comfortable illusion of fluency. The central idea is that difficulty during learning, the right kind, is what makes knowledge durable. That runs against nearly every instinct a training designer has about keeping a room comfortable.
The book stays close to laboratory evidence and is honest about how much of it has been tested in classrooms rather than offices. Transfer to corporate settings is plausible rather than established.
Our Take
Retrieval, spacing and interleaving: the book shows why the right kind of difficulty makes learning last. A clear, evidence-based guide to hand to anyone who designs learning.
Brown, P. C., Roediger, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Find it
