For years, teachers have advised students on how to study, trusting the traditional study methods and practices they’ve used themselves. It’s easy to stick with what you know and not question the validity of your habits, especially if they’ve gotten you this far in life.
But what if these common study habits are not only ineffective, but also hurting your chances of earning higher scores?
John Dunlosky, a psychology professor at Kent University, led an in-depth study on the 10 most common study strategies. Surprisingly, some of the most used methods were the least credible, whereas less popular methods were found to be quite valuable.
Let’s take a look at three of the study tips considered to be unsuccessful:
1. Highlighting (for the sake of highlighting)
Dunlosky found highlighting to be at the top of the list when it came to the least effective study techniques. Many students simply highlight key words that seem to have importance, but are unable to connect them to the material or draw inferences from them. Re-reading highlighted words is not enough to make the information apparent and clear. Highlighting draws attention to certain facts of passages, but takes away from learning and understanding the passages as a whole.
What to do instead: Use the words you have highlighted to create a practice exam for yourself. This will require you to look up the definitions of these key terms and allow the information to absorb in your memory. Or, you can create flashcards from what you have highlighted, and practice using them until you fully learn the concepts.
2. Re-reading
The idea upon re-reading a text is that you will pick up on addition terms and concepts that you may not have learned initially. This may work if you are re-reading chapters the night before an exam in order to reinforce what you have learned, but not if you are just starting a studying session. According to Dunlosky, “Most effects with re-reading have been shown with recall-based memory measures, whereas the benefit for comprehension is less clear.” In other words, re-reading may be beneficial for memorization, but inadequate when it comes to comprehending the material.
What to do instead: Re-reading should not be seen as a negative, but rather only be used as reinforcement prior to an exam. During study sessions, try using the shrinking outline method. First create an outline covering all the material you have learned, and then after a few days, create a condensed outline once you have memorized the information. The condensed outline should only contain main ideas from the first outline; this will give you a plan for what to re-read the night before an exam.
3. Cramming
Many students believe cramming just hours before an exam is a sufficient way of studying. It is true that students may pass their tests by cramming, however it is impossible to retain that information over a long period of time and it will quickly disappear from your memory. Students may not care if the information is lost after taking final exams, however it may affect their grades if they cannot recall important concepts in the middle of the school year.
What do to instead: Dunlosky advises students to take advantage of the distributed practice strategy rather than continuously cramming. Distributed practice involves spreading out study sessions over time and breaking up the material in smaller chunks. By setting aside time each day to review a portion of the material, you are able to remember the information for longer intervals of time. The longer you want to remember the information, whether it’s 5 days or 5 months, the longer the intervals should be.