ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how key factors in memory can have a major impact on how well skills and ideas remembered and understood. Memory is a key aspect of learning, and depends on forming meaningful schema knowledge to which new material can be linked. When learners are working through tasks or studying, whether in the classroom or elsewhere, they are likely to rely on inaccurate assumptions about memory, such as the idea that repeated rereading should be effective. Being engaged and making a mental effort plays a curious role in memory. While it may seem obvious that learners who are making more of an effort remember better, a classic research study by Hyde and Jenkins (1973) suggested that meaningful processing plays a larger role. Difficulty is another area where the workings of human memory are rather counterintuitive.
