Which study strategies make the grade?
Students everywhere, put down those highlighters and pick up
some flashcards! Some of the most popular study strategies -- such as
highlighting and even rereading -- don't show much promise for improving
student learning, according to a new report published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a
journal of the Association for Psychological Science. In the report, John
Dunlosky of Kent State University and a team of distinguished psychological
scientists review the scientific evidence for ten learning techniques commonly
used by students.
"Schools
and parents spend a great deal of money on technology and programs to improve
student achievement, even though evidence often isn't available to firmly
establish that they work," says Dunlosky. "We wanted to take a
comprehensive look at promising strategies now, in order to direct teachers,
students and parents to the strategies that are effective, yet underused."
Based
on the available evidence, the researchers provide recommendations about the
applicability and usefulness of each technique.
While
the ten learning techniques vary widely in effectiveness, two strategies --
practice testing and distributed practice -- made the grade, receiving the
highest overall utility rating.
Most
students are probably familiar with practice testing, having used flash cards
or answered the questions at the end of a textbook chapter. Students who prefer
last-minute cram sessions, however, may not be as familiar with the idea of
distributed practice.
Dunlosky
and colleagues report that spreading out your studying over time and quizzing
yourself on material before the big test are highly effective learning
strategies. 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.
In
contrast, five of the techniques received a low utility rating from the
researchers. Notably, these techniques are some of the most common learning
strategies used by students, including 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. By just replacing rereading with delayed retrieval practice,
students would benefit," says Dunlosky.
So why
don't they? Why aren't students and teachers using the learning strategies that
have been shown to be effective and inexpensive?
Dunlosky
and colleagues found that the answer may have to do with how future teachers
are taught.
"These
strategies are largely overlooked in the educational psychology textbooks that
beginning teachers read, so they don't get a good introduction to them or how
to use them while teaching," Dunlosky explains. As a result, teachers are
less likely to fully exploit some of these easy-to-use and effective
techniques.
To help
address this gap, the researchers organized their report in distinct modules,
so that teachers can quickly decide whether each technique will potentially
benefit his or her students and researchers can easily set an agenda on what we
still need to know about the efficacy of these strategies.
"The
learning techniques described in this monograph will not be a panacea for
improving achievement for all students, and perhaps obviously, they will
benefit only students who are motivated and capable of using them,"
Dunlosky and colleagues note. "Nevertheless, when used properly, we
suspect that they will produce meaningful gains in performance in the
classroom, on achievement tests, and on many tasks encountered across the life
span."
The report, "Improving Students' Learning With Effective
Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational
Psychology," is published in the January 2013 issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest and is authored by John Dunlosky and
Katherine A. Rawson of Kent State University, Elizabeth J. Marsh of Duke
University, Mitchell J. Nathan of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and
Daniel T. Willingham of the University of Virginia. The research included in
the report was supported by a Bridging Brain, Mind and Behavior Collaborative
Award through the James S. McDonnell Foundation's 21stCentury
Science Initiative.
The
report also features an editorial written by Henry L. Roediger III of
Washington University in St. Louis.
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