The coverage of distributed practice and retrieval practice in teacher education textbooks

The benefits of learning strategies as distributed practice and retrieval practice on long-term retention have been repeatedly established across many populations, domains and subjects and are supported by robust evidence from hundreds of lab-experiments and classroom studies. Teachers could greatly benefit from learning about these strategies, their purposes, and how to use them in their teaching. Examining the topical coverage of distributed and retrieval practice in introductory teacher education textbooks and syllabi is an important way to understand how teacher candidates are being educated about these strategies. We assessed if Dutch and Flemish teacher training programs adequately cover study strategies such as retrieval practice and distributed practice in their written learning materials. We examined 61 textbooks and syllabi by inventorying descriptive and prescriptive information on the strategies. Also, we analysed whether the coverage referred to research from the field of the strategy. The results indicated that, for the greatest part, textbooks and syllabi do not adequately discuss and accurately represent distributed practice and retrieval practice. Accurate textbooks are used in a small minority of teacher education programmes. Possible implications and challenges for authors, teacher education programmes and policy-makers are discussed.