Potts, Rosalind;
van den Broek, Gesa SE;
Albers, Anke Marit;
Balaguer, Jan;
Berkers, Ruud;
de Jonge, Mario;
Dhanani, Asif;
... Shanks, David R; + view all
(2025)
The Memrise Prize, an International Research Competition: A Pragmatic Trial to Compare Methods for Learning Foreign Language Vocabulary.
Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition
10.1037/mac0000224.
(In press).
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Abstract
How well do learning techniques work in the real world, and what happens when several techniques are combined? We conducted a competition in which international research teams developed methods to maximize the number of correct translations that learners could acquire in 1 hr and successfully recall 1 week later. Teams initially tested their method for learning 80 Lithuanian–English words pairs against a standardized control method. Five shortlisted methods and the control condition were then compared on a common online platform, using Lakota–English pairs, with retention data collected from over 3,803 users of an online learning tool. The winning entry, which combined a visual mnemonic technique with retrieval practice and an adaptive algorithm for introducing new words, achieved an average of 27.23, 95% CI [26.08, 28.38] out of 80 word pairs recalled. This work highlights the contribution that competitions can play in addressing practical questions about human learning and memory.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Memrise Prize, an International Research Competition: A Pragmatic Trial to Compare Methods for Learning Foreign Language Vocabulary |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1037/mac0000224 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1037/mac0000224 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | "This work was partly supported by an Impact Acceleration Award from the U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, EP/K503745/1 to David R. Shanks. Because this research was funded in whole, or in part, by United Kingdom Research and Innovation, for the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright license to any author accepted manuscript version arising from this submission". |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Experimental Psychology UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Language and Cognition |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10215604 |
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