For years many educators have championed “errorless learning,” advising teachers (and students) to create study conditions that do not permit errors. For example, a classroom teacher might drill students repeatedly on the same multiplication problem, with very little delay between the first and second presentations of the problem, ensuring that the student gets the answer correct each time.

The idea is that students who make errors will remember the mistakes and will not learn the correct information (or will learn it more slowly, if at all). Recent research shows that this worry is misplaced. Pupils actually learn better if conditions are arranged so that they have to make errors. Specifically, people remember things better and longer if they are given tests so challenging that they are bound to fail. This phenomenon has obvious applications for education, but the technique could be useful for anyone who is trying to absorb new material of any kind.

This article was originally published with the title The Pluses of Getting It Wrong.

5 Comments

1. 1. bigems 11:16 AM 2/18/10

   I believe this is the best way to learn, I had a college math professor who would pose a question on the topic we haven't learned yet. We would then spend the next half hour trying to collectively come up with the answer as he shot down wrong answer after wrong answer. In a way it opens up the mind, because now you are so inclined to find the answer, and when you finally get it, it sticks!

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2. 2. dskan 11:21 AM 2/18/10

   I doubt there was any research actually supporting the error-free learning method. More likely it arises from North Americans' bias that children's hands should be held right through to the end of high school, and they should never be allowed to make errors in case it makes them feel bad. That false morality has caused more destruction to our culture than any combination of other factors since WWII.

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3. 3. Ungolythe in reply to dskan 01:29 PM 2/18/10

   Did you actually read the article? The whole premise is that people DO learn from their mistakes.
   
   "Pupils actually learn better if conditions are arranged so that they have to make errors. Specifically, people remember things better and longer if they are given tests so challenging that they are bound to fail. "
   
   Being a product of North American schools, as are my children, my experience as well as theirs must have been vastly different than where you went to school. Or are you just flailing about wildly trying to find scapegoats for your perceived deficits in our society?

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4. 4. Pierre Francois Puech 04:47 AM 2/19/10

   This is not so much experience that is the basis of knowledge
   that adherence to certain principles, rules and
   a step-by-step procedure for accomplishing some end . The comment made by bigems "I believe this is the best way to learn, I had a college math professor who would pose a question on the topic we haven't learned yet. We would then spend the next half hour trying to collectively come up with the answer as he shot down wrong answer after wrong answer. In a way it opens up the mind, because now you are so inclined to find the answer, and when you finally get it, it sticks!" is perfectly clear. Pierre-Francois PUECH

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5. 5. Matthewt69 06:15 PM 2/21/10

   The trouble is that difficult tests will strongly discourage many learners. It is similar to training for some kind of an endurance event - to get the best performance you need to spend a portion of your time doing very high intensity training, which is quite unpleasant. Teachers in normal high schools will discover that difficult pre tests will be accepted and even enjoyed by their brightest students who will see them as a challenge. Most of your average, or below average students will just switch off.

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