Study Reveals The Best Study Strategies for College Students
John Dunlosky, Professor & Director of Experimental Training at Kent State University conducted a study to evaluate the efficiency of 10 popular study strategies students use in both high school and college. Ironically, the study found that some of the most common study strategies students use received very low ratings.
The study techniques that were found to be the worst included highlighting and underlining information, rereading, and summarization. Mental imagery, the practice of creating pictures to remember text, was found to be moderately effective. Additionally, elaborative interrogation (asking oneself "why"), self-explanation (explaining the text to oneself), and interleaved practice (mixing up different types of problems) were found to be moderately effective.
The best strategies for studying included practice testing and distributed practice. Non-graded pop quizes, flash cards, end-of-chapter quizes and other forms of practice testing were proven to be the best strategies for recalling and retaining information. Distributed practice (spreading out study sessions) proved to be a better way to retain information and retain it for longer periods of time. In fact, the longer one wants to remember information, the longer the intervals of study should be.
These findings are extremely helpful for instructors who want to help their students succeed by encouraging the most beneficial study techniques.
What do you think about these findings? What techniques do you (or will you) encourage students to use and do you have ideas for how you'll do it?
Download the full study here.
The article states facts about better learning mechanisms for college students. It says that underlining and high lighting is not the best way to retain information. Its better to do it with pictures or slides.
Interesting findings. I've always been one to highlight, review, and rewrite notes in order to retain information.
I would probably incorporate non graded quizzes into the classroom but then it would require carefully selecting the information so the most important is used. I like th idea of spreading out the study sessions, I would probably revisit topics randomly and frequently so students would be able to access their memory banks and if not there begin storing the information.
I have found if my students can apply textbook content with current events or their life, they will see the value in the lesson. This entices them to learn more through research, interviewing family/friends, and asking questions.
As for the highlighting, underlining, and summarizations, I guess that worked for my generation and is a technique I would not like to loose.
I encourage flash cards and my exams are always preceeded by non graded mock exams. I had discovered highlighting was ineffective becasue if they did not find the area right away they asked their neighbor (or skipped the info) and then two people missed the next point who asked their neighbors ect. ect.
I find it strange that mental pictures did not rate higher. I like to associate things with pictures so that if they temporarily can not pull out the right term they might be able to pull up the image and get the information to pop back into the active memory.
A good strutegy for studing is a non graded pop up quiz. Asking yourself questions repeathely before an exam helps the brain to retrive and aply knowledge from memories and I think is more effective then reading and summarizing the textbook.
I will definitely encourage the students to use the non graded pop up quizzes and also end of chapters quizzes.
We do open book testing. Highlighting and underlining work because they are looking through their book for the answer.
Highlighting and underlining work in an open book test is ok if you only want to parrot back information when asked, but to really know something you have to get into it and read or get your hands on it. In some classes taking notes by hand and copying down things seen or told helps, but until a student is able to put concepts together and fully understand what is being taught, they will never gain enough knowledge to test well. It seems that many of our students today only want enough information to pass the exam, not enough to adequately do the work that is involved in the field of study they are in. They may well know enough to look good on paper, but pick up a tool and try to show they know something is another matter entirely. Doing other means of surprise testing in my opinion doesn’t really put the information there, it shows how much they don’t know and they find a way to put it in memory. Seeing things over and again helps learning, I totally agree with that idea, but until students are shown how much they don’t know out of what they are expected to know, they will be lazy enough to just get by much of the time.
Blogs are good for all kinds of seminars; I took the Stress Seminar and that was fine; Now I took ED111 and I scored 65% on final test now I have to repeat the test not sure how to do this.
This was interesting research on study methods. Two areas that have been successful for me in the classroom is giving multiple mini-quizes. It does seem students can do better with "smaller doses" of material. The second area that does seem to work well is having a student explain to another student in their own words what we have just discussed or read. This engages the student and makes learning proactive.
To be aware of the best study methods or study techniques for students is good information for instructors to know, because in a way it would make things easier for them (instructors), how to teach the subjects. I am surprised that for students, highlighting and underlining were found to be one of the worst study techniques. But then it may be a student's preference not to mark or write in their books when they study. Students often ask what they need to know for a test, and highlighting or underlining the sentence in the book would emphasize that for them, specifically, if they had not written any notes down. Summarizing as one of the worst study techniques also surprises me, as it is a way to make sure with oneself, that one is able to tell the subject back in a more condensed tell-tale story. But then I wonder again, does the student only wants to be involved in specific type of career such as assisting or serving, and not the depth of the specific know-how. For example: "If I only watch, I will know. I do not need to go through the specific skill step-by-step." This may be good for specific career fields. I am thinking of assisting careers in the health field or reception career filed areas.
Rereading might be non-effective if the student is just reading without understanding, or grasping, or following the subject. I often tell my students to visualize when they study, to study with pictures, and not to only memorize. In doing so, they bring the subject to 'life" and more interesting to them, which then in turn becomes easier to understand.
I myself do not consider highlighting a form of teaching, or just studying. It is a form of making a point of what is to be known for a test for example. Highlighting helps the instructor only talk about the subjects of relevance for students to know, specifically for their tests; it does not help make the point to understand the subject, merely makes the student aware the highlighted subject is of importance to upcoming tests and for their career field. The same it is with underlining. Only the subject of importance to know for the test is brought to the student's attention.
I think anyway a student can retain information to do well on an exam they should use to succeed. Some students do even study with music in order to do well, and they do.
One of the ideas I use to help students succeed is to give homework quizzes, which I correct and grade. The student is then encouraged to read the subject and be questioned with the quizzes. It is a way to help the student become familiar with the subject. Specifically in the accelerated course programs this method has been a tool for me to help students succeed with their courses, and prepare them for their upcoming big exams. Another method I use to test students' understanding and knowledge of the subject is to give clinical mock lab tests to test students’ skills in a real clinical environment.
Still in the end, whatever way a student may use to help him/her succeed in class, I think the student should use, so that he/she becomes successful in their profession.
I guess it goes back to the age old addage that practice makes perfect. If retaining the information is more effective by revisiting it sporatically, then that's what we should be doing. Of course, there will be several individuals that may not respond to these techniques, but we can use alternative forms for those students. However it may go, it's certainly worth expanding the manipulation of the information through skills, daily work and homework more than once.
This study leaves off the most important and most effective learning method I have encountered - SQ3R. I have a presentation on SQ3R at Slideshare, which anyone is welcome to download and share. http://www.slideshare.net/avanclea/presentations
Thank you for sharing your presentation Alfred Van Cleave! I have embedded it here for convenience to others who wish to review the presentation and to discuss it here in the community.
I found this reading to be quite interesting, as I think back to my college study habits. We had old tests from previous semesters that we studied from, I wondered at the time how much I was memorizing VS absorbing. Some things I had to re-write to understand and pictures help a great deal for me, especially if I read and re-wrote the material on or around the picture. With all that being said, I was rather surprised with the outcome of some of the above study.
Maybe I will have to give my students mock exams . . .
