Chapter 10 Further Reading

Desirable Difficulties: Why Making Learning Harder Makes It Last

Tier 1: Foundational Works (Start Here)

These are the landmark texts that established the research base for this chapter. If you read nothing else, read these.

Bjork, R. A. (1994). Memory and metamemory considerations in the training of human beings. In J. Metcalfe & A. P. Shimamura (Eds.), Metacognition: Knowing about Knowing (pp. 185-205). MIT Press. The foundational paper that introduced the concept of desirable difficulties to the field. Bjork argues that training conditions that make learning feel easier often reduce long-term retention and transfer, while conditions that introduce difficulty enhance them. This chapter is the intellectual origin of everything in Chapter 10. Dense but essential — read it after you're comfortable with the concepts from the chapter.

Bjork, E. L., & Bjork, R. A. (2011). Making things hard on yourself, but in a good way: Creating desirable difficulties to enhance learning. In M. A. Gernsbacher, R. W. Pew, L. M. Hough, & J. R. Pomerantz (Eds.), Psychology and the Real World: Essays Illustrating Fundamental Contributions to Society (pp. 56-64). Worth Publishers. The most accessible introduction to the desirable difficulties framework, written by both Bjorks for a general audience. Shorter and more readable than the 1994 chapter, it covers the core framework, storage vs. retrieval strength, and the main desirable difficulties with clear examples. This is the single best entry point if you want to go deeper. Available in some online repositories.

Bjork, R. A., & Bjork, E. L. (1992). A new theory of disuse and an old theory of stimulus fluctuation. In A. Healy, S. Kosslyn, & R. Shiffman (Eds.), From Learning Processes to Cognitive Processes: Essays in Honor of William K. Estes (Vol. 2, pp. 35-67). Erlbaum. The technical paper that lays out the new theory of disuse — the formal framework of storage strength and retrieval strength. This is where the mathematics of the two-strength model are developed. Graduate-level reading, but the conceptual core is accessible to motivated undergraduates. Read this if you want to understand why the lower the retrieval strength at the time of retrieval, the greater the gain in storage strength.

Kornell, N., & Bjork, R. A. (2008). Learning concepts and categories: Is spacing the "enemy of induction"? Psychological Science, 19(6), 585-592. A beautifully designed study showing that spacing and interleaving improve category learning despite reducing performance during practice. Students who studied paintings by different artists in an interleaved format judged that they had learned less than students who studied in blocks — but the interleaved group performed dramatically better on a test. This paper captures the central paradox in a single experiment and is one of the most-cited studies in the desirable difficulties literature.

Tier 2: Key Studies and Reviews (Go Deeper)

These works provide important evidence, extensions, and critical perspectives on desirable difficulties.

Slamecka, N. J., & Graf, P. (1978). The generation effect: Delineation of a phenomenon. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 4(6), 592-604. The landmark paper establishing the generation effect. In a series of elegant experiments, Slamecka and Graf demonstrated that generating a word from a cue produced better memory than simply reading the word — even when total study time was equated. This finding has been replicated hundreds of times and is one of the most robust effects in all of cognitive psychology.

Richland, L. E., Kornell, N., & Kao, L. S. (2009). The pretesting effect: Do unsuccessful retrieval attempts enhance learning? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 15(3), 243-257. The key paper on pretesting. Students who took a pretest on material they hadn't studied — and got most questions wrong — performed significantly better on a later test than students who spent the same time studying without a pretest. The paper carefully distinguishes the pretesting effect from simply providing advance organizers and demonstrates that the failed retrieval attempt itself is the active ingredient.

Kapur, M. (2014). Productive failure in learning math. Cognitive Science, 38(5), 1008-1022. Manu Kapur's definitive statement of the productive failure framework. Students who attempted complex math problems before receiving instruction outperformed students who received instruction first, particularly on tests of conceptual understanding and transfer. Kapur's work extends the desirable difficulties framework into instructional design, showing that the sequence of struggle-then-instruction is more effective than instruction-then-practice.

Kapur, M. (2008). Productive failure. Cognition and Instruction, 26(3), 379-424. Kapur's earlier and more comprehensive theoretical treatment of productive failure, including a detailed analysis of the different types of solutions students generate during the failure phase and how those solutions prepare them for subsequent instruction. More technical than the 2014 paper but richer in theoretical detail.

Butterfield, B., & Metcalfe, J. (2001). Errors committed with high confidence are hypercorrected. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 27(6), 1491-1494. The paper that established the hypercorrection effect. Butterfield and Metcalfe showed that when people are highly confident in a wrong answer and then receive corrective feedback, they are more likely to remember the correct answer than when they had low confidence in their error. This counterintuitive finding has important implications for pretesting and error-based learning.

Kerr, R., & Booth, B. (1978). Specific and varied practice of motor skill. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 46(2), 395-401. The classic study on variation of practice cited in the chapter. Children who practiced beanbag throws at variable distances outperformed children who practiced at the exact test distance — a striking demonstration that variable practice builds more transferable motor skills than constant practice.

Roediger, H. L., III, & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249-255. While cited in Chapter 7 for the testing effect, this paper is equally relevant here as a demonstration of retrieval practice as a desirable difficulty. Students who replaced restudy time with testing performed nearly twice as well on a delayed test — even though testing felt less productive during the study session.

Schmidt, R. A., & Bjork, R. A. (1992). New conceptualizations of practice: Common principles in three paradigms suggest new concepts for training. Psychological Science, 3(4), 207-217. An influential review that bridges motor learning and cognitive learning research, identifying common principles — including desirable difficulties — across both domains. Particularly relevant for understanding why variation of practice and contextual interference improve learning across such different skill types.

Tier 3: Practical Guides (Apply It)

These resources help you implement desirable difficulty principles in your studying.

Brown, P. C., Roediger, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Harvard University Press. The most popular and accessible trade book on evidence-based learning strategies. Desirable difficulties are a central theme. The book weaves together stories of learners in diverse contexts — pilots, surgeons, students, athletes — with clear explanations of the underlying science. If you read one book beyond this textbook, make it this one. Chapters 1-4 are most relevant to this chapter's content.

Lang, J. M. (2016). Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning. Jossey-Bass. Written for teachers but equally useful for students who want to understand how to apply learning science in practice. Lang provides concrete, small-scale strategies for introducing desirable difficulties into any learning context. The chapters on retrieval, interleaving, and pretesting are directly relevant.

Carey, B. (2014). How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens. Random House. A journalist's tour through learning science, with strong chapters on the spacing effect, testing effect, and contextual interference. Carey writes engagingly and provides vivid stories that make abstract principles memorable. A good complement to Make It Stick — less academic, more narrative.

Weinstein, Y., Sumeracki, M., & Caviglioli, O. (2019). Understanding How We Learn: A Visual Guide. Routledge. A dual-coded introduction to learning science (the book about learning science that practices what it preaches). Includes clear visual explanations of desirable difficulties, spacing, retrieval practice, and interleaving. Short, accessible, and excellent as a quick reference.

Agarwal, P. K., & Bain, P. M. (2019). Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning. Jossey-Bass. Focused specifically on retrieval practice but covers broader desirable difficulty principles. Written by a cognitive scientist and a classroom teacher, it bridges the gap between research and practice more effectively than most books in this space. Includes ready-to-use strategies for students and teachers.

Tier 4: Advanced and Specialized (For the Deeply Curious)

Soderstrom, N. C., & Bjork, R. A. (2015). Learning versus performance: An integrative review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 176-199. The most comprehensive review of the learning-performance distinction — the finding that conditions producing superior performance during training often produce inferior long-term learning, and vice versa. This paper systematically reviews the evidence across spacing, interleaving, variability, and other desirable difficulties. Essential reading for anyone who wants the full research picture.

Kapur, M., & Bielaczyc, K. (2012). Designing for productive failure. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 21(1), 45-83. The theoretical framework behind productive failure as an instructional design principle. Goes beyond the empirical findings to articulate the design principles that make productive failure work: generation and exploration of multiple solutions, attention to prior knowledge activation, and consolidation through formal instruction. Graduate-level but rewarding.

Kornell, N., Hays, M. J., & Bjork, R. A. (2009). Unsuccessful retrieval attempts enhance subsequent learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 35(4), 989-998. Extends the pretesting research by showing that unsuccessful retrieval attempts — trying and failing to recall information — enhance subsequent learning of that information compared to not attempting retrieval at all. This paper provides strong evidence that the act of trying to retrieve, even when you fail, has a causal benefit on subsequent encoding.

Bjork, R. A. (2011). On the symbiosis of remembering, forgetting, and learning. In A. S. Benjamin (Ed.), Successful Remembering and Successful Forgetting: A Festschrift in Honor of Robert A. Bjork (pp. 1-22). Psychology Press. A retrospective overview of the desirable difficulties research program by its originator. Bjork reflects on thirty years of research, addresses criticisms, and articulates the current state of the theory. Particularly interesting for his discussion of how forgetting is not just the failure of memory but an active process that can facilitate new learning.

Metcalfe, J. (2017). Learning from errors. Annual Review of Psychology, 68, 465-489. A comprehensive review of research on learning from errors, including the hypercorrection effect, pretesting, and productive failure. Metcalfe synthesizes the evidence across multiple paradigms and provides a theoretical framework for understanding when and why errors enhance learning. The most thorough treatment of the error-correction literature available.

Online Resources

The Bjork Learning and Forgetting Lab (bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu) Robert and Elizabeth Bjork's research lab at UCLA. The website includes downloadable papers, video lectures, and accessible summaries of the desirable difficulties framework. The video of Robert Bjork's keynote lectures are particularly good introductions to the storage/retrieval strength distinction.

The Learning Scientists (www.learningscientists.org) Yana Weinstein and Megan Sumeracki's website dedicated to translating cognitive psychology research into practical study strategies. Includes blog posts, downloadable materials, and podcasts covering desirable difficulties, retrieval practice, spacing, and interleaving. The "Six Strategies for Effective Learning" section is an excellent practical companion to this chapter.

Retrieval Practice (www.retrievalpractice.org) Pooja Agarwal's website focused specifically on retrieval practice as a learning strategy. Includes research summaries, implementation guides, and free resources for students and teachers. While focused on retrieval practice specifically, many of the resources address the broader desirable difficulties framework.

Reading Strategy Suggestion

Don't try to read all of these. Instead:

1. If you want the accessible overview: Start with Bjork & Bjork (2011) "Making things hard on yourself, but in a good way." It's short, clear, and written for a general audience. If you can find it online, read it this week.

2. If you want the strongest single study: Read Kornell & Bjork (2008) on spacing and painting categories. It demonstrates the entire desirable difficulty paradox — worse performance during practice, better learning on the test, and learners who judge themselves as having learned less even though they learned more — in one elegant experiment.

3. If you want practical application: Get Make It Stick by Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel. It covers everything in this chapter and more, told through vivid stories. It's the best popular science book on learning available.

4. If you want the full theory: Read Bjork & Bjork (1992) on the new theory of disuse for the formal framework, then Soderstrom & Bjork (2015) for the comprehensive evidence review.

5. If you're interested in productive failure: Start with Kapur (2014) for the empirical findings, then read Kapur & Bielaczyc (2012) for the design principles.

These readings extend Chapter 10 and connect to Chapters 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 21, and 25.