Learning from errors: The intrinsic mechanism by which Deliberate Errors Enhance Learning

we tested the learning effects of deliberate errors and further examined the intrinsic mechanisms by which deliberate errors promote learning. We systematically tested two hypotheses, Hypothesis 1 was that in immediate testing, the effects of deliberate errors and retrieval practice were similar and they both outperformed repetition learning, and Hypothesis 2 was that in delayed testing, the effects of deliberate errors and retrieval practice were similar and they both outperformed repetition learning. In three experiments, we investigated that learners were positively affected by learning core conceptual words in psychology for making deliberate (semantic) errors. These concepts are often considered core components of foundational knowledge that students must master to gain expertise in a particular area, and conceptual learning features prominently in many academic programs across many disciplines similar to the way students are often able to refer to textbooks or notes when learning these concepts on their own (Blasiman et al., 2017; Pan & Rickard, 2017), participants in this study used three learning strategies to learn core concept words. Participants then completed a cued recall test in which they were prompted to recall the definition of each conceptual term. Considering that poorer metacognitive awareness may lead to the adoption of suboptimal learning techniques, we also assessed learners' metacognitive knowledge about the effectiveness of deliberate errors versus error-free learning.