"'massing' all the study on a single topic into a single session reduces long-term retention. It's better to leave it alone for a while and then return to it. Rohrer and Pashler also wanted to see if the duration of study breaks might make a difference in learning. It did. When two study sessions were separated by breaks ranging from five minutes to six months, with a final test given six months later, students did much better if their break lasted at least a month. So, rather than distribute their study of some material across just a few days, as millions of school children do when given a different list of vocabulary or spelling words each week, students would be better off seeing the same words throughout the school year."
So, in terms of our students, it's better to get them to revisit things at intervals. In fact, this looks remarkably consonant with Tony Buzan's stuff in Use Your Head. Where a revision programme is recommended of revisiting learning after 10 mins, at the end of the day (the human brain learns more effectively in the evening.), a week or so later, a month later and so on.
ScienceDaily: Back To School: Cramming Doesn't Work In The Long Term:
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