quote:

You've told me repeatedly that my question is the wrong one. I assure you that my question is the one I meant to ask. I was happy to clarify what I mean by effectiveness, but beyond that, I stand by what I'm asking.

It is indeed a "right" question. I have no answers for you, but I'm willing to take a few minutes to look around. If you hear of anything would you report back to the rest of us?

quote:

Originally posted by Robert Bacal:
It is indeed a "right" question. I have no answers for you, but I'm willing to take a few minutes to look around. If you hear of anything would you report back to the rest of us?

Thank you!

I definitely will share what I find, if I find anything elsewhere!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MadelynB,

Wow. This is a tough area to search. I'm trying to figure out what search terms to use.

In any event if you don't know of google scholar you can try that search engine at http://scholar.google.com

Also Eric (Education Resources Information Center) at http://www.eric.ed.gov

..ok, some progress. Try doing searches with the words refresher and training rather than using retraining as a search term, since retraining has more common meanings and won't get you much.

Also, the success of repeat questions may have to do with "overlearning", so you might try that. Here's one reference:

The effectiveness of overlearning in enhancing performance has been acknowledged by researchers
within the training community for years. In spite of this general consensus, the empirical basis for
this claim is often not clear. This article presents a meta-analysis of the effects of overlearning on
retention. Results indicate that overlearning produces a significant effect on retention of moderate
overall magnitude and that the effect of overlearning on retention is moderated by the degree of
overlearning, type of task, and length of retention period.

at http://web.rollins.edu/~jdriskell/overlearning.pdf

Well, got to move on, but my bet it is that the general topic of effectiveness of refresher type training has got to have research findings, and my bet is that the results would be that under certain circumstances it's effective, and in others, not so effective, depending on time spans, topic, complexity of content, and so on.

...which is why this is a tough research assignment per se.

Try http://www.informaworld.com/index/776189065.pdf

I can't get it to work but the title is the retention of skills acquired throug simulator based training and refresher training was one of the two variables investigated.

FInally, you probably realize that once you find ONE study that fits the bill, you'll be set since you can just track back the citations.

Good luck.

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This is getting closer I think:

The purpose of this research was to determine: (1) the long-term retention of procedural skills depends on how periodic, refresher training sessions are scheduled, and (2) if soldiers can estimate in advance of retention testing how much training they require to regain proficiency. Thirty-eight Army reservists were divided into three groups and trained under one of the following schedules: Control, where initial training continued until the soldier achieved a criterion of one errorless performance; Massed Sessions (MS), where initial training was extended 100% beyond criterion performance; and Spaced Sessions (SS), where 100% overtraining trials were provided midway through the retention interval. Performance was measured on the disassembly and assembly of the M60 machinegun, and it was measured following 8 weeks of no practice. Immediately prior to retention testing and retraining, soldiers completed a questionnaire designed to assess whether they could estimate the amount of training they required to regain proficiency on the experimental task.

http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPref...identifier=ADA120758

Wonderful, Robert. Thanks for the ideas.

I had spent some time in ERIC and found some things in the Bureau of Labor Statistics that were interesting but not quite right (for reasons I admit, I don't fully grasp -- I'm pretty distant from the investigation being conducted, which makes finding the right thing very hard).

I'll post the links I found tomorrow.