A flashcard or flash card is a card bearing

information Information is an Abstraction, abstract concept that refers to something which has the power Communication, to inform. At the most fundamental level, it pertains to the Interpretation (philosophy), interpretation (perhaps Interpretation (log ...

on both sides, usually intended to practice and/or aid

memorization Memorization (British English: memorisation) is the process of committing something to memory. It is a mental process undertaken in order to store in memory for later recall visual, auditory, or tactical information. The scientific study of mem ...

. It can be virtual (part of a flashcard software) or physical. Typically, each flashcard bears a question or definition on one side and an answer or target term on the other. As such, flashcards are often used to memorize

vocabulary A vocabulary (also known as a lexicon) is a set of words, typically the set in a language or the set known to an individual. The word ''vocabulary'' originated from the Latin , meaning "a word, name". It forms an essential component of languag ...

, historical dates, formulae, or any subject matter that can be learned via a question-and-answer format. Flashcards are an application of the

testing effect The testing effect (also known as retrieval practice, active recall, practice testing, or test-enhanced learning) suggests long-term memory is increased when part of the learning period is devoted to retrieving information from memory. It is differ ...

, the finding that

long-term memory Long-term memory (LTM) is the stage of the Atkinson–Shiffrin memory model in which informative knowledge is held indefinitely. It is defined in contrast to sensory memory, the initial stage, and short-term or working memory, the second stage ...

is increased when some part of an individual's learning period is devoted to retrieving information through testing with proper feedback. Study habits affect the rate at which a flashcard user learns, and proper spacing of flashcards has been proven to accelerate learning.

Format

Two-sided cards

Physical flashcards are two-sided. They have a number of uses and can be simple or elaborate depending on the user's needs and preferences. One may also use two parallel decks in tandem, such as an English-Japanese deck in conjunction with a Japanese-English deck.

Example

An English-speaking student learning the Chinese word 人 (rén, person or people) may write a card with the following sides. Front: :Q: person :A: 人, rén Reverse: :Q: 人 :A: rén, person

Three-sided cards

Electronic flashcards may have a three-sided card. Such a card has three fields, Q, A, and A*, where Q & A are reversed on flipping, but A* is always in the answer—the two "sides" are thus Q/A,A* and A/Q,A*. These are most often used for learning foreign vocabulary, where the foreign pronunciation is not transparent from the foreign writing. In this case, the question (Q) is the native word, the answer (A) is the foreign word (written), and the pronunciation is always part of the answer (A*). This is particularly the case for character-based languages like Chinese

hanzi Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represent the only one ...

and Japanese

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

, but it can also be used for other non-phonetic spellings such as

English as a second language English as a second or foreign language refers to the use of English by individuals whose native language is different, commonly among students learning to speak and write English. Variably known as English as a foreign language (EFL), Engli ...

. The purpose of three-sided cards is to provide the benefits of two-sided cards—ease of authoring (enter data once to create two cards), synchronized updates (changes to one are reflected in the other), and spacing between opposite sides (so opposite sides of the same card are not tested too close together)—without the card needing to be symmetric. It is analogous to an arbitrary number of data fields associated with a single record, with each field representing a different aspect of a fact or bundle of facts.

Psychology

Flashcards specifically exercise the mental process of active recall: given a question, one must produce the correct answer. However, many have raised several questions regarding optimal usage of flashcards: how does one precisely use them, how frequently does one review, and how does one react to errors, either complete failures to recall or partial mistakes? Various

systems A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment, is described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and is exp ...

have been developed, mostly based around

spaced repetition ''Spaced'' is a British television sitcom created, written by and starring Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson, and directed by Edgar Wright, about the comedic, and sometimes surreal and action-packed, misadventures of Daisy Steiner and Tim Bis ...

, the technique of increasing time intervals between reviews whenever a card is recalled correctly.

Spaced repetition

Spaced repetition is an evidence-based learning technique which incorporates increasing time intervals between each review of a flashcard in order to harness the

spacing effect The spacing effect demonstrates that learning is more effective when study sessions are spaced out. This effect shows that more information is encoded into long-term memory by spaced study sessions, also known as '' spaced repetition'' or ''sp ...

. Newly introduced and more difficult flashcards are shown more frequently, whereas older and less difficult flashcards are shown less frequently. The use of spaced repetition has been shown to generally increase one's rate of learning. Although the principle is useful in many contexts, spaced repetition is commonly applied in contexts in which a learner must memorize a large number of items and retain them in long-term memory. It is therefore often used in

acquisition amidst second language learning. Additionally, spaced repetition software has been developed to aid the learning process through a virtual format as opposed to merely a physical one.

Leitner system

The Leitner system is a widely used method of efficiently using flashcards. Originally proposed by the German science journalist Sebastian Leitner in the 1970s, it is a simple implementation of the principle of spaced repetition where cards are reviewed at increasing intervals. In this method, flashcards are sorted into groups according to how well the learner knows each one in the Leitner's learning box. The learners then try to recall the solution written on a flashcard. If they succeed, they send the card to the next group. If they fail, they send it back to the first group. Each succeeding group has a longer period of time before the learner is required to revisit the cards. In Leitner's original method published in his book ''So lernt man Lernen'' (''How to learn to learn''), the schedule of repetition was governed by the size of the five partitions in the learning box, which were 1, 2, 5, 8, and 14 centimeters, respectively. The learner only reviewed some of the cards in a section whenever it became full, subsequently moving them forward or backward depending on whether they remembered them.

Software

There is a wide range of software, including

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

and online services, available for creating and using virtual flashcards as a learning aid.

History

Paper flashcards have been used since at least the 19th century. ''Reading Disentangled'' (1834), a set of

phonics Phonics is a method for teaching reading and writing to beginners. To use phonics is to teach the relationship between the sounds of the spoken language (phonemes), and the letters (graphemes) or groups of letters or syllables of the written ...

flashcards by English educator Favell Lee Mortimer, is believed by some to be the first known usage of flashcards. A single-sided

hornbook A hornbook (horn-book) is a single-sided alphabet tablet, which served from medieval times as a Primer (textbook), primer for study, and sometimes included vowel combinations, numerals or short verse. The hornbook was in common use in England ar ...

was also known to have been used for early literacy education. The Leitner system for scheduling flashcards was introduced by German scientific journalist Sebastian Leitner in the 1970s with his book, ''So lernt man lernen.'' Later, the SuperMemo program and algorithm (specifically the SM-2 algorithm, which is the most popular in other programs) was introduced in 1987 by Polish researcher Piotr Woźniak.3. Account of research leading to the SuperMemo method, 3.1. The approximate function of optimal intervals
an

P. A. Wozniak, ''Optimization of learning,'' Master's Thesis, University of Technology in Poznan, 1990.

References

{{Spaced repetition Learning methods