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psychce nt ral.co m http://psychcentral.co m/blo g/archives/2013/02/08/2-impo rtant-strategies-fo r-effective-studying/ 2 Important Strategies for Effective Studying Every college student and high school student believes he or she has honed a set of highly ef f ective, usef ul study skills. I used re-reading, lots of summarizing, note-taking (and outlining), and taking the little tests you would of ten f ind at the end of a chapter to help me remember the material I just read. Nobody taught me how to study this way. It was just something I did through trial and error in trying and discarding multiple techniques. For instance, I tried highlighting, but it did little f or me. Of course, psychologists and other scientists have been testing ef f ective study techniques now f or decades. Being f ar more clever than I, they’ve actually run such techniques through the research ringer, and have come out with some ef f ective study strategies. Just last month, another group of researchers decided to take a look at all of that research, and boil down what we know about the most ef f ective methods f or studying. Here’s what they f ound. Researchers led by John Dunlosky (et al. 2013) f rom Kent State University decided to take a critical look at the 10 most common learning techniques available to students and see whether they had strong or little backing in the research literature. T he study methods examined were: 1. Elaborative interrogation — Generating an explanation f or why an explicitly stated f act or concept is true 2. Self-explanation — Explaining how new inf ormation is related to known inf ormation, or explaining steps taken during problem solving 3. Summarization — Writing summaries of to-be-learned texts 4. Highlighting/underlining — Marking potentially important portions of to-be-learned materials while reading 5. Keyword mnemonic — Using keywords and mental imagery to associate verbal materials 6. Imagery for text — Attempting to f orm mental images of text materials while reading or listening 7. Rereading — Restudying text material again af ter an initial reading 8. Practice testing – Self -testing or taking practice tests over to-be-learned material 9. Distributed practice – Implementing a schedule of practice that spreads out study activities over time 10. Interleaved practice — Implementing a schedule of practice that mixes dif f erent kinds of problems, or a schedule of study that mixes dif f erent kinds of material, within a single study session. So unbeknownst to me at the time, I was engaging in a combination of the above learning techniques while in school — summarization, rereading, and practice testing. I also tried to distribute my studying over time, and not try and cram right bef ore a test (although I probably was only marginally successf ul in adhering to that desire). At least one of my techniques was deemed ef f ective by the researchers — practice testing. T he other technique that received across-the-board high grades was distributed practice. According to the researchers, both techniques have been shown to boost students’ performance across many different kinds of tests, and their effectiveness has been repeatedly demonstrated for students of all ages. Some common study techniques used by most students didn’t receive such high marks f or ef f ectiveness: In contrast, five of the techniques received a low rating from the researchers. Interestingly, these techniques are some of the most common learning strategies used by students. Such ineffective strategies include: summarization, highlighting and underlining, and rereading. “I was shocked that some strategies that students use a lot — such as rereading and highlighting — seem to provide minimal benefits to their learning and performance,” Dunlosky said. “By just replacing rereading with delayed retrieval practice, students would benefit.” Indeed, students probably relay on tasks like highlighting and rereading because they are the easiest to do while actively studying. It’s so easy to whip out a highlighter and believe that by actively marking a passage, it’s somehow seeping into your brain cavities like syrup does into those little waf f le compartments. Sadly, that’s not the case. You might as well just snif f the highlighter f or all the good highlighting does in helping you study. Other techniques that got mixed but generally positive reviews include interleaved practice, self -explanation and elaborative interrogation. Mnemonics are likely helpf ul f or some key concepts (you can’t get through medical school without them), but not as a general study technique. And rereading (which 65 percent of college students admit to using) can’t hurt you if the material is dense and dif f icult and you didn’t quite get it the f irst time around. But don’t kid yourself into believing that rereading is as good as taking a practice test or spreading studying over time. (And generally, you only need to re-read a text passage once; multiple rereading ef f orts don’t usually help with comprehension.) So there you have it — f ocus on practice testing and studying evenly over the course of the entire semester. T hose techniques are going to be the most time-ef f ective and the best use of your brain cells. Read the f ull article: What Study Strategies Make the Grade? Reference Dunlosky, J. Rawson, K.A., Marsh, E.J., Nathan, M.J. & Willingham, D.T. (2013). Improving Students’ Learning With Ef f ective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14, 4-58. Footnotes: Dr. John Grohol is the f ounder & CEO of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a f ounding board member and treasurer of the Society f or Participatory Medicine. Like this author? Catch up on other posts by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. (or subscribe to their f eed). Comment s T his post currently has 2 comments. You can read the comments or leave your own thoughts. Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 8 Feb 2013 Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved. APA Reference Grohol, J. (2013). 2 Important Strategies f or Ef f ective Studying. Psych Central. Retrieved on January 10, 2014, f rom http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/02/08/2-important-strategies-f or-ef f ective-studying/