Comparison of retention rates using traditional, drill sandwich, and incremental rehearsal flash card methods

Research has demonstrated increased retention from drill, but the data regarding drill format are inconsistent. Two commonly used models, Drill Sandwich (DS) and Incremental Rehearsal (IR), were compared to each other and to a traditional flashcard method by individually teaching words from the Esperanto International Language to 25 third- and 26 seventh-grade students who were screened for receptive vocabulary. Retention of the pronunciation and English translation was tested after 1, 2, 3, 7, and 30 days. A significant main effect (p < .001) was found between the three conditions at each interval. The IR model consistently led to significantly more words retained than the traditional or DS approaches. Correlation coefficients between retention and receptive vocabulary were above .30 at the 1- and 3-day intervals for the traditional model, but little covariance was noted for DS, and even less for IR. Potential implications and suggestions for future research are included.