Quantification of learning is a farce.
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The Value of Anthropology - Noticing and Challenging the Magic Counting Dragon #highered #challengingnotaccomdating anthropology-news.org/index.php/2013
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Conversation
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In fact, I mostly agree that quantification is a farce! :)
This is more an epistemological claim than an ontological one: I think there are things here to be known, but as a practical matter, such attempts tend to do more harm than good the more they lean into quantification.
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SRS does involve quantities, but I don’t think those quantities are very meaningful for the kinds of claims edu-quantifiers would like to make.
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Are there any metrics worth tracking in SRS? Anki for eg gives you “notes” reviewed in “X” time that’s not really meaningful, I believe. In TTFT you measured retention after “N” repetitions is that worth tracking for different topics?
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I spent a lot of time working on this last year, but I still don’t like my answers here.
It’s worth being careful about what “meaningful” means. Meaningful to you, the reader, in that it reflects lived experience? Meaningful to an outside assessor, in that it “proves” something?
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Demonstrated retention rates are fairly meaningful to me, the reader, when they resonate with and reinforce my lived experience of growing confidence with the material. But I don’t think they’re very meaningful to an outsider who wants to know if you understand a given concept.
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In terms of “living with” an SRS, I think one of the most meaningful metrics is *throughput*: if I say I want to spend 10m/day on this habit, how much material can I add per day?
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Another useful (and classic) one is the “forgetting index”: in the (sometimes long) periods between sessions, how likely am I to actually remember the thing if I find I suddenly need it?
Too low, and you lose confidence in the system; too high, and you’re wasting time.
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For me, the north star metric is roughly: what, on the margin, did this enable you to think or do? But of course, you can’t really measure that in general.
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Once you start using SRS for a wider range of things, many of the memory-oriented metrics go out the window. Well-written prompts can effect a change in consciousness—make you briefly think a different way. The “optimal” frequency for such a prompt may be daily!