| Although knowledge of factual information is a prerequisite for all other learning, memorization is looked down upon by many educators and academics---particularly when it is achieved through drill and practice activities. As a result, students are left on their own to determine the most effective and efficient means to acquire foundational information. Unfortunately, as a result of poor metacognitive skills, their efforts often prove to be counterproductive.;In order to address this problem, a review of the literature was conducted to identify experimentally validated psychological principles and procedures that have been consistently shown to produce rapid acquisition and maintenance of paired-associated information. These principles and procedures were combined into a single computer-based flashcard system called FACTOR.;FACTOR was compared to an off-the-shelf electronic tlashcard program (Microsoft Ink Flash Cards) with most of the same superficial characteristics, but with very few of the critical psychological principles of learning. Results from a randomized field study with 60 middle-school students who studied African place-name geography for 100 minutes over five sessions revealed that students in the FACTOR group performed better on an immediate posttest and one-week retention test than students in the Microsoft group. Furthermore, the students preferred FACTOR to Microsoft Ink Flash Cards and their own study methods. The research indicates opportunities for future research and the author has released the source code for FACTOR under an open source license. |
