Highly Effective Study Strategies

In this helpful article in American Educator, John Dunlosky (Kent State University) summarizes the research he and several colleagues have done on the most effective methods of studying. [For a more detailed report on this research, see Marshall Memo 470.] It turns out that the strategy used most often by students – reading, re-reading, and highlighting – is one of the least-effective ways to retain information. Here are learning strategies that have been shown to work well for students of all ages.

• Practice testing – Many decades of research have shown that taking practice tests substantially boosts student learning. This approach works for two reasons. First, when we successfully retrieve something from memory, we strengthen the memory and make it easier to retrieve that piece of information or skill in the future. Second, when we don’t remember something on a practice test, we know what needs additional study. 

Students need explicit instruction on the most effective methods of practice testing. First, they should write or speak answers from memory, not in response to multiple-choice questions (which provide too much of a memory prompt). Second, students should be taught how to take notes in a way that facilitates practice testing – for example, writing key words on one side of a flashcard and definitions or answers on the other, or formatting notes in a way that makes it easy to cover answers and try to remember them. Third, students should be taught to keep testing themselves till they have mastered the material. With flashcards, this means putting aside cards that are answered correctly and working on the others until they are mastered. Teachers should also give practice tests at the end of class periods, asking students to write answers to some key questions from the class. The teacher can provide the correct answers right away or use the quizzes as exit tickets, giving students feedback the next day.

• Distributed practice – Most students believe that massed practice – cramming the night before an exam or copying each spelling word multiple times – is the best way to learn. They are wrong. It’s far more effective to study the material for shorter sessions spread over several days or write each word on the spelling list once and then cycle back to the beginning and write all the words again. Distributed practice feels more difficult – in fact, it’s often frustrating – but retention is far better. 

Although massed practice is most students’ choice when studying for school tests, distributed practice is common in other venues – computer games, for example, or practicing a dance routine for a contest. Students need to be taught the techniques of distributed practice – scheduling short bursts of study time several days before a test, for example. “For any given class,” says Dunlosky, “two short study blocks per week may be enough to begin studying new material and to restudy previously covered material.” Teachers can also use distributed practice during class time, returning to key concepts during each week and including them in class quizzes and cumulative exams. 

• Interleaved practice – This involves distributing practice across a study session and mixing up the order of materials across different topics. For example, students learn addition, subtraction, multiplication, division of fractions and then do a mixed practice with problems on all four skills mixed together. As with distributed practice, the interleaved approach feels harder but produces much better long-term retention. “Interleaving has been shown to improve performance (as compared with massed practice) in multiple domains,” says Dunlosky, “including fourth-graders learning to solve math problems, engineering students learning to diagnose system failures, college students learning artists’ styles, and even medical students learning to interpret electrocardiograms to diagnose various diseases.” 

Interleaved practice isn’t better in all areas: studies of students learning French vocabulary and comma usage found it worked about as well as massed practice. But there’s enough evidence on interleaved practice to suggest that teachers should rewrite many worksheets and practice exercises to mix different types of material throughout. 

• Elaborative interrogation and self-explanation – A student learning about photosynthesis might ask him- or herself how the process is similar to the way other living things breathe and get energy. Research on elaboration and self-explanation is not as strong as for the techniques described above, and they’re not effective when students have little or no prior knowledge of the subject matter. But they can get students actively processing information and asking “Why” questions at every step, which is helpful to understanding and retention. 

“Strengthening the Student Toolbox: Study Strategies to Boost Learning” by John Dunlosky in American Educator, Fall 2013 (Vol. 37, #3, p. 12-21), 

http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/fall2013/Dunlosky.pdf 

From the Marshall Memo #509