Every year I teach an introductory course on cognitive psychology to about 350 students. Every year I ask my students how they study and I find that they are much like students at Purdue, Washington University in St. Louis, UCLA, and Kent State--universities at which surveys have been conducted on student study strategies.
Like students at those schools, my students tend to take notes in class, color the readings with a highlighter, and later reread the notes and the highlighted bits of the text.
This Table show the results of a study by Jeff Karpicke and his colleagues (2009) on the study strategies of students at Washington University in St. Louis. (For other studies leading to similar conclusions see Hartwig & Dunlosky, 2012; Kornell & Bjork, 2007).
Like students at those schools, my students tend to take notes in class, color the readings with a highlighter, and later reread the notes and the highlighted bits of the text.
This Table show the results of a study by Jeff Karpicke and his colleagues (2009) on the study strategies of students at Washington University in St. Louis. (For other studies leading to similar conclusions see Hartwig & Dunlosky, 2012; Kornell & Bjork, 2007).
Rereading is a terribly ineffective strategy. The best strategy--by far--is to self-test--which is the 9th most popular strategy out of 11 in this study. Self-testing leads to better memory even compared to concept mapping (Karpicke & Blunt, 2011).
The table shows that students rarely self-test as a learning strategy. Other data show that they more often self-test as a check to be sure that they have studied enough.
There is much discussion these days of how much time students ought to spend studying text for later tests of factual recall. Whatever your answer to this question, if students are going to do it, we might as well give them the tools to do a good job.
This article on the website of the American Psychological Association is a good start.
Hartwig, M. K. & Dunlosky, J. (2012). Study strategies of college students: Are self-testing and scheduling related to achievement? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19, 126-134.
Karpicke, J. D. & Blunt, J. R. (2011). Retrieval practice produces more learning than elaborative studying with concept mapping. Science, 331, 772-775.
Karpicke, J. D., Butler, A. C., & Roediger, H. L., III. (2009). Metacognitive strategies in student learning: Do students practice retrieval when they study on their own? Memory, 17, 471–479.
Kornell, N., & Bjork, R. A. (2007). The promise and perils of self regulated study. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14, 219–224.
The table shows that students rarely self-test as a learning strategy. Other data show that they more often self-test as a check to be sure that they have studied enough.
There is much discussion these days of how much time students ought to spend studying text for later tests of factual recall. Whatever your answer to this question, if students are going to do it, we might as well give them the tools to do a good job.
This article on the website of the American Psychological Association is a good start.
Hartwig, M. K. & Dunlosky, J. (2012). Study strategies of college students: Are self-testing and scheduling related to achievement? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19, 126-134.
Karpicke, J. D. & Blunt, J. R. (2011). Retrieval practice produces more learning than elaborative studying with concept mapping. Science, 331, 772-775.
Karpicke, J. D., Butler, A. C., & Roediger, H. L., III. (2009). Metacognitive strategies in student learning: Do students practice retrieval when they study on their own? Memory, 17, 471–479.
Kornell, N., & Bjork, R. A. (2007). The promise and perils of self regulated study. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14, 219–224.
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