A major decision that must be made during study pertains to the distribution, or the scheduling, of study. In this paper, we review the literature on the benefits of "spacing," or spreading one's study sessions relatively far apart in time, as compared to "massing," where study is crammed into one long session without breaks.…

This article investigated individual control of spacing strategies during study. Three predictions were outlined: The spacing hypothesis suggests that people choose to space their study to improve long-term learning via the spacing effect. The massing hypothesis suggests that people choose to mass their study because of illusions of confidence…