Updated on
September 24, 2026
Edward Thorndike's Theory of Learning: The 3 Laws Explained
Thorndike's theory of learning explained: the laws of readiness, exercise and effect, the puzzle-box cats, later revisions and maths classroom examples.
What is Thorndike's theory of learning?
Edward Thorndike explained learning as the gradual strengthening of connections between a situation and a response through trial and error. He is commonly associated with the laws of readiness, exercise and effect. These were not three timeless rules: readiness appeared in his later educational account, and Thorndike later rejected a simple law in which mere repetition automatically produced learning. He also abandoned an equal-and-opposite account of punishment.
Edward Thorndike's theory of learning says that an action followed by a satisfying result is more likely to happen again in the same situation. His puzzle-box cats (1898) showed it as a slow, uneven drop in escape times, not a sudden flash of insight.
He is best known for three laws: readiness, exercise and effect. They were never one timeless set. Readiness came later, and Thorndike changed his mind about practice and punishment.
He also wrote a book on teaching arithmetic, so his laws come with real maths examples: which times tables to teach first, which habits to avoid and how to space practice. This guide, part of our Learning Theories collection, separates his first claims from his later changes and ends with maths lessons you can plan today.
For a teacher, the safe starting point is simple. Do not treat practice, praise or sanctions as automatic causes of learning. Check what changed, whether it lasted and whether it transferred to a new task.
What Is Thorndike's Theory of Learning?
Thorndike called his theory connectionism. It says that learning changes links between situations and responses. The situation was more than one simple cue; it included surrounding conditions and the animal's internal state. The act was the response connected with that situation.
Key Takeaways
- Learning was gradual: useful situation-response links were selected across trials.
- The three laws changed: the familiar list combines ideas from different stages of his work, and he later said repetition alone was not enough.
- Effect survived in a weaker form: satisfying consequences strengthened a connection, but punishment did not show an equal and opposite effect.
- Maths shows the theory at work: his 1922 arithmetic book ordered the times tables, warned against habits learners must later unlearn and spread practice out.
- His legacy is mixed: his tests and studies had wide influence. His eugenic, racist, sexist and antisemitic views must also be faced.
Thorndike did not say that a cat reasoned its way out. Many acts failed. One act opened the door and led to food. That act tended to occur sooner on later trials.
This was trial-and-error learning. Thorndike used the phrase “trial and error, with accidental success”. It was an early stimulus-response account. It was not a map of a modern brain pathway.
Thorndike's Three Laws of Learning
The familiar laws are readiness, exercise and effect. The list is useful, but it hides how the theory changed. Thorndike set out effect and exercise in 1911. Readiness appeared in his 1913 account of learning.
His own wording of the law of effect is worth reading once. He wrote that Of several responses made to the same situation, those which are accompanied or closely followed by satisfaction to the animal will, other things being equal, be more firmly connected with the situation, so that, when it recurs, they will be more likely to recur
(Thorndike, 1911). The rest of the law said that discomfort weakened a connection, the part he later dropped.
| Law | Thorndike's historical claim | Later status |
|---|---|---|
| Readiness | When a “conduction unit” is ready to conduct, doing so is satisfying and being prevented is annoying. Forced conduction when it is not ready is also annoying. | This was Thorndike's technical formulation, not a general claim that learners must feel motivated or know prerequisite content. |
| Exercise | Use strengthens a connection and disuse weakens it, other things being equal. | Thorndike rejected a simple law in which mere repetition or an arbitrary sequence produced learning. Consequences and belongingness mattered; his 1932 book did not report enough new evidence to settle disuse. |
| Effect | A satisfying result strengthens the connection it follows; an annoying result weakens it. | Later experiments preserved strengthening by satisfying consequences but did not support a symmetrical weakening effect from punishment. |
Read the Thorndike study-note transcript
Core Idea
In Thorndike's puzzle-box studies, successful responses were selected gradually through trial and error. Consequences could strengthen a connection between a situation and a response. His account changed over time.
Puzzle-Box Evidence
- Cats and dogs worked puzzle boxes.
- Chicks were tested in maze and enclosure tasks.
- Food was available after escape.
- For Cat 12 in Box A, the first escape took 160 seconds and the twenty-fourth took 7 seconds. Times fluctuated and reached a minimum of 5 seconds.
Thorndike read these cats' declining escape times as gradual trial-and-error learning rather than insight.
Three Historical Laws
- Readiness (1913): conduction is satisfying when a unit is ready. Blocking it, or forcing an unready unit, is annoying. Do not reduce this to prior knowledge or motivation.
- Exercise (1911, later revised): use was said to strengthen a connection and disuse to weaken it. Thorndike later rejected a simple law of mere repetition. Consequences and the way elements belonged together mattered.
- Effect (1911, revised 1927-32): the early law said that satisfaction strengthened and discomfort weakened a connection. Later, satisfying outcomes strengthened connections, while punishment did not reliably weaken them. Animal evidence does not prove a classroom method.
Connectionism and Transfer
Situation, response, consequence, changed connection. This is a historical stimulus-response account, not a modern neural-network theory. Transfer is stronger where tasks share relevant elements. Small task changes can sharply reduce transfer.
Education, Measurement and Comparison
Thorndike helped formalise quantitative educational measurement. He developed statistical methods, tests and scales for studying differences in performance. A test records defined performance, not the whole of learning.
- Thorndike: instrumental trial and error; situation-response connections.
- Pavlov: respondent conditioning; signals predict events.
- Skinner: operant behaviour; consequences select future action.
Limits and Legacy
Animal evidence does not directly prove classroom effectiveness. The theory underplays meaning, insight, agency and social learning. Thorndike's eugenic, racist, sexist and antisemitic views require explicit historical scrutiny.
Memory line: early laws, later revisions. Check the date before applying the claim.
Sources: Thorndike 1898, 1904, 1911, 1913, 1927 and 1932; Thorndike and Woodworth 1901; Catania 1999; Brock 2020; Domjan 2026; Teachers College 2020. See the full linked references.
The Five Subsidiary Laws
Thorndike also listed five subsidiary laws that sit under readiness, exercise and effect. He set them out for animals and then for people in his 1913 account of learning (Thorndike, 1913). Some textbooks call them the minor or secondary laws.
- Multiple response: faced with a problem, the learner tries several responses until one works.
- Set or attitude: what the learner is already set to do shapes which responses appear and which feel satisfying.
- Prepotency of elements: the learner responds to the most striking part of a situation, not to all of it.
- Response by analogy: a new situation gets the response already linked to a situation it resembles.
- Associative shifting: a response can be moved to a new situation by changing the old one step by step.
Quiz questions sometimes list a "law of observation". There is none in either list. Thorndike's animal studies found little sign of learning by imitation (Thorndike, 1911). Learning by watching others is the centre of Bandura's social learning theory, which came decades later.
How Thorndike Revised the Laws
Thorndike changed his theory when later results did not fit it. In 1927, people estimated or drew line lengths. They were told “Right” or “Wrong” after each response. Feedback improved later accuracy.
The study did not isolate whether “Right” strengthened connections, “Wrong” weakened them, or both (Thorndike, 1927). In later work, Thorndike kept the strengthening effect of satisfying results. He dropped an equal-and-opposite account of punishment (Thorndike et al., 1932; Catania, 1999).
This led to a weaker law of effect. A pleasing result could still strengthen a link. Punishment was not reward with the sign reversed. There is no separate Thorndike “law of punishment”.
Thorndike also dropped a simple law of exercise. Mere repetition of a situation or an arbitrary sequence did not produce learning by itself. Consequences and the “belongingness” of elements mattered. The book did not report enough new evidence to settle disuse (Thorndike et al., 1932).
This matters for teaching. Repeating an error can make it fluent. Repeating a correct answer may not build deep knowledge.
Yet Thorndike was not a modern retrieval researcher. Current work on spacing and recall belongs in the retrieval practice guide.
Modern research has tested one heir of his warning about mere repetition. In interleaved practice, a maths set mixes problem types, so learners must choose the method as well as use it. The evidence check below sums up seven studies of maths practice.
The strongest results come from Grade 7 maths classes in the United States, where mixed sets beat blocked sets on tests weeks later (Rohrer et al., 2015, 2020). A meta-analysis found a smaller effect for maths than for pictures and other visual material (Brunmair and Richter, 2019). One classroom study of angle facts found none (Rowlandson and Simpson, 2025). Our guide to interleaving shows how to build a mixed practice set.
The Puzzle-Box Experiments and Learning Curves
Thorndike used a series of puzzle boxes that required different escape responses. Depending on the box, a cat could pull a loop, press a lever or work a latch. Food was outside. He timed each escape and then ran another trial.
The records varied by animal and box. There is no single true countdown for “Thorndike's cat”. Escape time tended to fall, but not in a smooth line. A cat could get faster, slow down and then improve again.
Thorndike printed the escape times for each animal. The chart below redraws one record, for the cat he numbered 12 in box A, straight from his list.
Diagram · Build It
One cat's learning curve
Each bar is one escape from puzzle box A by the cat Thorndike numbered 12, in seconds. Trials run from 1 to 24 along the bottom; the taller the bar, the longer the cat took.
1601
90
60
6
12
18
5
724
What to notice. The first escape took 160 seconds and the last took 7, but trial 3 took 90 and trial 8 took 30. The drop is uneven, not a sudden leap. Thorndike read that pattern as slow selection of the act that worked, not insight.
Data: trials 1 to 24, in seconds: 160, 30, 90, 60, 15, 28, 20, 30, 22, 11, 15, 20, 12, 10, 14, 10, 8, 8, 5, 10, 8, 6, 6, 7. Source: Thorndike (1911), Animal Intelligence, chapter 2, curve 12 in box A.
Thorndike read this slow change as evidence against sudden insight or imitation. An act was selected because of what followed it. The study did not show that cats never grasp a link. It also did not show that all human learning follows this curve. His tests found little sign that the animals learned by imitation or reasoning (Thorndike, 1911).
The method gave a series of measures, not one striking tale. It still had limits. Escape time cannot show all that an animal learned. The use of closed boxes also raises welfare concerns today.
Connectionism and Trial-and-Error Learning
Connectionism explained how a situation became linked with a response. Many acts could occur in one setting. A pleasing result made one link more likely to operate when the setting returned.
The animal did not need to know how the latch worked. Its acts still changed over time. “Accidental” did not mean random for ever. The result helped select which act would occur again.
Thorndike's bonds were units in his theory. They were not the same as long-term potentiation, dopamine release or any one brain process. Similar words do not make two accounts identical.
Connectionism became part of the history of behaviourism. Yet Thorndike was not simply a later behaviourist ahead of his time. His ideas about satisfaction, tests and personal differences do not fit every behaviourist school.
Thorndike's Laws in a Maths Lesson: Worked Examples
Thorndike wrote a whole book on arithmetic, so his laws come with his own maths examples. In The Psychology of Arithmetic he treated each number fact as a bond to be formed and strengthened (Thorndike, 1922). His preface said that learning is essentially the formation of connections or bonds between situations and responses
, and that the satisfyingness of the result is the chief force that forms them
.
Three of his arithmetic examples still read well. He argued that the 5s should come before the 1s and 2s, because they were easier and showed the idea of multiplying more clearly. He warned that writing a column sum over 9 before two-place addition fixes a habit learners must later break, so he suggested oral answers first.
He also sketched a practice plan: a main learning period, then reviews that grew shorter and further apart. That looks like modern spaced practice, although he said the evidence was not yet good enough to fix exact schedules (Thorndike, 1922). The table shows each law in a maths lesson and what later research added.
| Law | In a maths lesson | What later evidence adds |
|---|---|---|
| Readiness | Before long division, check that learners can recall times tables and subtract, so the division step is the only new thing. | Thorndike's law was about "conduction units", not prior knowledge. Checking prerequisites is a sound modern reading, not his technical claim. |
| Exercise | Learners practise 7 × 8 until recall is quick. Practising a wrong answer, such as 7 × 8 = 54, strengthens the error too. | Mixed and spaced sets beat one block of the same question on later tests (Rohrer et al., 2015, 2020). Thorndike later said repetition alone did not produce learning. |
| Effect | A learner checks 2x + 3 = 11 by putting x = 4 back in and sees it works. That success makes the method more likely next time. | Feedback that explains helps more than a bare right or wrong (Van der Kleij et al., 2015). A wrong mark does not weaken an error as much as success strengthens a right answer. |
Two worked examples follow, one primary and one secondary, and then a short look at trial and error in maths.
Primary Example: Year 3 Column Addition
A Year 3 class is adding 47 + 38 in columns. Several learners write 715, because they write down both digits of 7 + 8. If the class completes a page of twenty in that way, the law of exercise predicts a stronger wrong habit, not a weaker one.
The teacher stops after three questions and models the exchange with place value counters: ten ones become one ten. Learners do three more, writing the exchanged ten under the line. Next week, two regrouping questions return in the starter beside one that needs no exchange, so learners must decide. That delayed, changed question is the real test of learning.
Secondary Example: Year 8 Solving Equations
A Year 8 class can solve 2x + 3 = 11 but falls apart on 11 = 2x + 3. The practice set only ever had x on the left, so the practised bond does not share enough with the new form. That is Thorndike and Woodworth's point about identical elements in a maths lesson.
The teacher puts a worked example beside a matching problem, then mixes forms: x on the right, a bracket, and a number story. Each answer is checked by substitution, so a correct method ends in visible success. In early studies, worked examples helped learners solve algebra problems of the same structure faster and with fewer errors than problem solving alone, but the gain did not carry over to problems with a different structure (Sweller and Cooper, 1985). That is why the forms are then mixed.
Trial and Error in Maths: Useful or Wasteful?
Trial and error has a fair place in maths. Guess, check and improve is a real strategy for an equation or a puzzle, and it teaches learners to test an answer. Thorndike himself wrote that some learners grasp fractions in algebra only when they do, do, do
(Thorndike, 1911).
Blind trial and error is slow, though. Thorndike's cats had no way to see why the latch worked, and many of their acts were wasted. Learners can see the structure, so show it: model the method, ask for an attempt, and give feedback that explains the step. The planner below turns these ideas into a move for your next maths lesson.
Mini app · Build It
Plan the next maths lesson
Pick the topic and the problem you are seeing. You get the Thorndike idea behind it, one move for the next lesson, a delayed check to see whether it lasted and transferred, and what later research adds. Print the card for your planner.
A planning prompt drawn from Thorndike's writing and later classroom research, not a scheme of work. Adjust the numbers to your class.
Each card links one problem you can see in books to one law and one move. The delayed check matters most, because a quick correct answer in the lesson says little about what will last. For wider maths practice, see our summary of evidence-based maths teaching.
Thorndike's Contribution to Education and Measurement
Thorndike turned much of educational psychology into a field of tests and data. His 1904 book set out statistical ways to study how people differ in school-related abilities (Thorndike, 1904).
He also named a rating error that still matters for teachers. In 1920 he reported that officers who rated a man highly on one quality tended to rate him highly on the others too, a pattern now called the halo effect (Thorndike, 1920). A neat, confident piece of work can earn a kinder mark for its content in the same way.
With Robert Woodworth, he challenged the idea of formal discipline. Training one broad “faculty”, such as memory, did not improve every other task. Transfer was more likely when old and new tasks shared key parts (Thorndike and Woodworth, 1901).
Modern reviews back his narrow view. Training in working memory, chess or music rarely improves unrelated tasks, and the effect falls to zero in the best-controlled studies (Sala et al., 2019). In children, working-memory training did little for maths or reading (Sala and Gobet, 2017). Our guide to near and far transfer has classroom examples.
This offers a useful question. What does a new task share with the practice task? A surface match does not ensure transfer. Learners may need to spot a link, grasp a rule and know when to use it.
His role in testing also needs limits. He helped put measures at the heart of the field. That does not mean every test follows his theory. A score also cannot show all that a learner knows.
Thorndike, Skinner and Pavlov Compared
Thorndike, Skinner and Pavlov studied different learned links. Pavlov studied how a signal came to call out a response. Thorndike tracked acts across escape trials. Skinner later built a separate study of operant behaviour.
| Researcher | Main relation | Characteristic preparation | Important boundary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thorndike | A situation-response connection changes through its consequences. | Repeated puzzle-box escape trials and learning curves. | Connectionism is not Skinner's operant conditioning. |
| Pavlov | A signal predicts another event and comes to elicit a response. | Conditioned-reflex studies with dogs. | The focus is a predictive signal, not the result of a voluntary action. |
| Skinner | The consequences of an operant alter its future occurrence. | Repeated responding in an operant chamber. | Skinner's definitions and schedules should not be attributed backwards to Thorndike. |
Read the dedicated guides for Pavlov's conditioned-reflex research, Skinner's theory and Watson's behaviourism. Our operant conditioning guide covers reinforcement, punishment, schedules, shaping and extinction.
What the Theory Means for Teaching Today
Classroom uses are modern inferences, not methods Thorndike tested in today's schools. His later work warns against two shortcuts. Repetition is not the same as learning. A sanction may not reverse an act as well as success can strengthen it.
Consider one spelling example. A learner repeatedly writes separate incorrectly. More uncorrected repetitions may make the error fluent.
A teacher can show the relevant pattern and ask for one accurate attempt. The teacher can then vary the context. A later sentence tests whether the learning transfers beyond the original item.
This is a modern teaching choice, not one of Thorndike's class trials. It does not show that rewards are needed. A meta-analysis found that expected tangible rewards reduced interest in tasks people already enjoyed (Deci et al., 1999). Teachers must also think about meaning, interest, talk and self-control. Formative assessment gives a wider way to check learning and choose the next step.
Readiness is easy to stretch too far. Thorndike asked whether a “conduction unit” was ready to act. A teacher can instead check prior knowledge, task clarity or willingness. That is a modern use of the word, not his technical law.
Teachers talking about maths practice on social media this term described routines that fit his laws without naming him. The table sets three of them beside the evidence.
Classroom routines · Maths practice · September 2026
What it looks like in the room
Three maths practice routines described on social media this term. The routine and notice columns are our summary of each post; the evidence column is Thorndike's writing and later classroom research, not the post.
| Routine, as teachers describe it | What you would notice | What the evidence says |
|---|---|---|
| Times tables booklets sent home for short practice between lessons | ||
Children have left school today with some TTRS booklets to practise at home, which will support their fluency. |
Practice moves out of the lesson and is spread across days. The post does not say how the school checks that the facts come back in a new problem. | Mixed and spaced practice sets beat blocked sets on a test a month later in Grade 7 maths classes (Rohrer et al., 2020). Home practice of a wrong fact strengthens the error too, so check accuracy early (Thorndike, 1911). |
| About six minutes a day of focused fluency practice | ||
Dr. Brian Poncy's program asks teachers to devote only about 6 minutes/day to fluency practice. |
Short daily slots replace long blocks. The post reports a programme's advice and a parent's own experience, not a classroom trial. | Thorndike (1922) sketched practice spread over time, with reviews further and further apart. Later classroom trials support spacing maths practice out, though they did not test this programme (Rohrer et al., 2015). |
| Immediate feedback in class instead of grading homework | ||
I do not grade HW as I find immediate feedback more important + it would not be a reliable indicator of what they're capable of. |
The teacher reviews misconceptions with a small group straight after the work, rather than marking homework that would not show what learners can do. | Feedback that explains the error did better than a bare right or wrong in computer-based studies (Van der Kleij et al., 2015). Thorndike's 1927 line-drawing study gave only Right or Wrong. |
None of the three routines says how a practised fact is checked in a changed problem. That is Thorndike and Woodworth's transfer question, and the delayed check in the planner above is one way to answer it. The views below show the same tension from other angles.
Teacher voices · Maths practice · September 2026
Recall, understanding and feedback
Four views shared on social media this term: on recall without understanding, practice that stops too soon and feedback for a whole class. The first two argue that fast recall without understanding does not last.
- objection
I've seen people help kids memorize the times tables but not know that it's critical that kids understand that multiplication is repeated addition.
Moving on before grasping an idea. Attempts at retrieval of these topics constantly failing as there is no understanding to retrieve.
No, what actually happens is they do well enough on a quiz or two and then they don't practice it after that and then they end up in middle school unable to do their times tables.
Mini-whiteboards + whole class feedback is the way to go.
The argument is older than social media. Thorndike's arithmetic book treated number facts as bonds to strengthen through practice, and his own later work added that repetition without consequences and belongingness did not produce learning (Thorndike et al., 1932). Fluent recall and a check in a changed problem belong together.
Limitations and the Problematic Side of Thorndike's Legacy
Thorndike made learning easier to measure, but his account was narrow. A puzzle-box escape cannot explain language, culture, identity or shared meaning on its own. His move from animal tasks to schools also went too far at times.
A faster act does not tell us why it changed. It may reflect learning, stress, tiredness, a new tactic or the task itself. Animal evidence cannot move straight into a classroom claim.
Thorndike's social views are part of the record. He backed eugenics and wrote racist, sexist and antisemitic ideas. This work sat within the scientific racism and white supremacy of early twentieth-century education (Fallace, 2016).
In 2020, Teachers College voted to remove his name from a campus building. Its review noted both his influence and the prejudice in his work (Teachers College, 2020).
We can value a sound study without praising the whole programme. Tests are not neutral by default. Teachers still need to ask what is measured and whose goals count.
They must also protect dignity and fair access. Rewards, sanctions and school routines belong in the classroom behaviour management guide.
Try one move this week. Pick a maths topic in the planner above, teach the next lesson from its card and use the delayed check to see what lasted. Then compare Thorndike with the other models in our overview of learning theories for teachers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Thorndike's main claim was that the result of an act changes its link with a situation. These answers cover the laws, the puzzle boxes and operant conditioning. They also explain his later changes and harmful social views.
What is Thorndike's theory of learning in simple terms?
Thorndike argued that learning changes links between a situation and a response. Acts followed by a pleasing result become more likely in a similar setting. His first account gave practice and punishment more weight than later evidence allowed.
What are Thorndike's three laws of learning?
The three commonly listed laws are readiness, exercise and effect. They were not introduced together in the 1911 book. Thorndike later rejected a simple law of mere repetition. He also dropped the equal-and-opposite punishment side of the law of effect.
What is an example of Thorndike's laws in a maths lesson?
A Year 3 class adding 47 + 38 shows all three. Readiness: learners know their number bonds to 20 first. Exercise: repeated correct exchanges make regrouping quick, while repeated errors such as 715 become habits. Effect: a learner who checks the answer and finds it right is more likely to use the method again.
Is observation one of Thorndike's laws of learning?
No. His primary laws are readiness, exercise and effect, and his five subsidiary laws do not include observation either. His animal studies found little learning by imitation. Learning by watching others is central to Bandura's social learning theory.
What is the law of readiness in simple terms?
Thorndike's law said that acting when a "conduction unit" is ready feels satisfying, and being blocked or forced when it is not ready feels annoying. Teachers often use it loosely to mean checking prior knowledge and willingness. That is a sensible modern reading, but it is not his technical claim.
What did Thorndike's puzzle-box experiment show?
Escape times tended to fall across trials, but the curves were uneven. Thorndike saw this as the slow selection of successful acts, not sudden insight into the box.
Did Thorndike invent operant conditioning?
No. The law of effect shaped later work, including Skinner's. Operant conditioning is Skinner's own framework. It has its own terms and methods.
Did Thorndike believe practice makes perfect?
His early law of exercise gave use and disuse a simple role. He later stressed consequences and belongingness. Practice can still matter, but mere repetition does not ensure accurate, understood or transferable learning.
Why is Thorndike controversial?
Thorndike shaped research on learning, school tests and psychology. He also backed eugenics and held racist, sexist and antisemitic views. Both parts belong in an honest account.
References
These primary texts and trusted studies support the account above.
Further Reading: Primary and Scholarly Sources on Thorndike
- Brock, R. (2020). Connectionism: Edward Thorndike. In B. Akpan and T. J. Kennedy (Eds.), Science Education in Theory and Practice: An Introductory Guide to Learning Theory, 101-112.
- Brunmair, M. and Richter, T. (2019). Similarity Matters: A Meta-Analysis of Interleaved Learning and Its Moderators. Psychological Bulletin, 145(11), 1029-1052.
- Catania, A. C. (1999). Thorndike's Legacy: Learning, Selection, and the Law of Effect. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 72(3), 425-428.
- Deci, E. L., Koestner, R. and Ryan, R. M. (1999). A Meta-Analytic Review of Experiments Examining the Effects of Extrinsic Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 627-668.
- Domjan, M. (2026). Thorndike's Law of Effect and Its Inconsistent Description over the Years. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 125(1), e70073.
- Fallace, T. D. (2016). Educators Confront the “Science” of Racism, 1898-1925. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 48(2), 252-270.
- Rohrer, D., Dedrick, R. F. and Stershic, S. (2015). Interleaved Practice Improves Mathematics Learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 107(3), 900-908.
- Rohrer, D., Dedrick, R. F., Hartwig, M. K. and Cheung, C.-N. (2020). A Randomized Controlled Trial of Interleaved Mathematics Practice. Journal of Educational Psychology, 112(1), 40-52.
- Rowlandson, P. and Simpson, A. (2025). Interleaving in Mathematical Category Learning. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 56(3), 125-147.
- Sala, G., Aksayli, N. D., Tatlidil, K. S., Tatsumi, T., Gondo, Y. and Gobet, F. (2019). Near and Far Transfer in Cognitive Training: A Second-Order Meta-Analysis. Collabra: Psychology, 5(1), 18.
- Sala, G. and Gobet, F. (2017). Working Memory Training in Typically Developing Children: A Meta-Analysis of the Available Evidence. Developmental Psychology, 53(4), 671-685.
- Sweller, J. and Cooper, G. A. (1985). The Use of Worked Examples as a Substitute for Problem Solving in Learning Algebra. Cognition and Instruction, 2(1), 59-89.
- Teachers College, Columbia University (2020). Important Announcement from the President and Chair of the Board of Trustees.
- Thorndike, E. L. (1898). Animal Intelligence: An Experimental Study of the Associative Processes in Animals. Psychological Review: Monograph Supplements, 2(4), i-109.
- Thorndike, E. L. (1911). Animal Intelligence: Experimental Studies. New York: Macmillan.
- Thorndike, E. L. (1904). An Introduction to the Theory of Mental and Social Measurements. New York: The Science Press.
- Thorndike, E. L. (1913). Educational Psychology, Volume II: The Psychology of Learning. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University.
- Thorndike, E. L. (1920). A Constant Error in Psychological Ratings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 4(1), 25-29.
- Thorndike, E. L. (1922). The Psychology of Arithmetic. New York: Macmillan.
- Thorndike, E. L. (1927). The Law of Effect. The American Journal of Psychology, 39(1/4), 212-222.
- Thorndike, E. L. and the Staff of the Division of Psychology of the Institute of Educational Research (1932). The Fundamentals of Learning. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University.
- Thorndike, E. L. and Woodworth, R. S. (1901). The Influence of Improvement in One Mental Function upon the Efficiency of Other Functions (I). Psychological Review, 8(3), 247-261.
- Van der Kleij, F. M., Feskens, R. C. W. and Eggen, T. J. H. M. (2015). Effects of Feedback in a Computer-Based Learning Environment on Students' Learning Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis. Review of Educational Research, 85(4), 475-511.
- Wisniewski, B., Zierer, K. and Hattie, J. (2020). The Power of Feedback Revisited: A Meta-Analysis of Educational Feedback Research. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 3087.
