Learning is essential to evolve and improve, and in fact, although we may not realize it, every day we learn new things. In psychology of learning we find interesting concepts, such as overlearning.

Overlearning consists of the fact that each new skill acquired must be practiced beyond the initial practice or competence, in order to eventually achieve the automation of said skill or task.

Let’s see what studies say about this concept, and how it relates to psychology and education.

Overlearning: what is it?

Overlearning consists of continuing to study or practice something after it has been acquired , that is, after the initial competence has been achieved. It also involves the reinforcement or integration of the material or skill learned.

This is a pedagogical concept (and also a psychological one, as we will see later on), which holds that in the practice of a task beyond the point of mastery, overlearning allows to combat or reduce forgetfulness and to improve transference .

In other words, overlearning allows the knowledge acquired to be extrapolated to other areas or contexts, beyond the academic sphere, for example (at home, in the park, in personal life, etc.)

Research

According to some studies, overlearning is important for retaining the lesson or material learned successfully , as well as the execution of tasks.

A study published in the Journal of Neuroscience showed how as the study participants became more adept at a task, the amount of energy used to perform that task decreased (by the end of the study, that energy had decreased by 20%).

On a physical level, it is known that repeating a task allows “muscle memory” to perform the specific movement, which in turn allows it to reduce unnecessary movements and eliminate wasted energy. This can be extrapolated to learning processes, since according to some authors there is a mental correlation with “muscular memory”.

Practical example

Think of a dancer who does the same movement countless times; in the end she will come to feel that she can do it perfectly even “in her sleep”. She can repeat the movement as many times as she wants, even transfer that learning to memory. This will significantly reduce any possibility of error in each performance.

Psychology of Learning

In learning psychology, the concept of overlearning takes on a new meaning, and is related to memory and knowledge retention. The greater the learning (the greater the memorization of a task), the less forgetfulness is obtained.

This is related to the famous curve of oblivion by Hermann Ebbinghaus , a German philosopher and psychologist. This author concluded that the more significant a memory is, the more it is maintained over time. Perhaps we can even extrapolate this statement to less “academic” or theoretical memories, and more emotional ones (experiences lived in an autobiographical way).

The Ebbinghaus Oblivion Curve

But let’s go back to the Ebbinghaus findings. An interesting phenomenon arises from applying standardized tests in relation to memory; if I give a child a standardized test, task or quiz, his score on that test or task will be normalized and at most altered according to the context (e.g. it is a good day for this child, the weather is appropriate, the noise is advisable, etc.)

But if I give the same type of task consecutively every day to this child, without varying the conditions in which it is done (same place, same time, same scenario,…) after a while there will be a phenomenon of sensitization to the task.

That is, this child will mechanically and automatically perform the task successfully and his results will be above what would be expected under normal conditions . In other words, there is an overlearning that favours the achievement of the test.

If we relate this to the forgetfulness curve, we would see that it has a very steep slope when little significant content is memorized, but that it is almost flat when the content is attractive or transcendental to the child.

Overlearning on task

We can understand overlearning as something positive, since that which is reviewed and memorized over a long period of time, is kept longer in memory. For example, multiplication tables are hard to forget, since we systematically review them as children through a series of “ditty” or mnemonic rules that we learn without meaning at first.

On the other hand, there is the significance and transcendence of the contents or learning. That is to say, it is not the same to memorize as to learn , and in education this can be seen a lot.

It is important to stress that for good learning to take place (significant learning), the student must not only “memorize”, but also understand what he or she is learning , as well as be able to put it into practice in his or her daily life in a successful and adaptive way and relate it to previous concepts.

And how do we relate the latter to overlearning? In standardized tests, overlearning causes children to memorize without understanding why the content is important or relevant, and without connecting the knowledge to previous underlying bases.

Bibliographic references:

  • Beach, T. (2013). What Is “Overlearning” and Why Is It So Important? A + Test Prep & Tutoring.
  • Sampascual, G. (2007). Educational Psychology. 2 Volumes. UNED. Madrid.
  • Woolfolk, A. (1996). Educational psychology. Mexico, Prentice-Hall Hispanoamericana SA, p. 316.