How to study more effectively, according to this professor’s research

What are some of the biggest mistakes you see students make when it comes to learning?

“It’s more misconceptions. Students think you’re not learning well when you’re thinking hard about something, like a theory or concept, because it might be hard to grasp. On the other end, students think that if you understand a concept quickly, it means that you will do good on a test.

“These misconceptions are linked to some of the strategies they use. Certain strategies, like re-reading notes are believed to be more effective than testing yourself, but the literature shows it’s the other way around. You also look at how they study, like cramming, so when you try and learn as much information as possible before the exam. It might be good from the student perspective because it is a time efficient to pass the test, but not from the educational perspective if the goal is to learn and remember information long-term.

“These two perspectives reflect the different goals that students and teachers have. The teacher wants you to learn something, but the student might want to pass the test.”

What are some of the worst strategies students have used that you’ve seen as a teacher?

“You see that underlining isn’t used in an effective manner. It can be effective if you combine it with other strategies, but on its own it’s not particularly effective. Or mass reading, just re-reading the chapter over and over, it can instill some false sense of confidence as it’s not engaging in methods to retrieve information that you previously learned.

“As an example, I teach statistics, and a good strategy would be to try and solve the problem first, then look at the answer later. But some students look at the answer first and say ‘okay, I understand it now’. That promotes a false sense of confidence because when you see a working example that’s quite clear, then you might get the impression that you can do it to, but it might not be true.”

Is the lack of good studying techniques something that is caused by secondary education before university?

“That’s one explanation offered. Students developed habits of learning during secondary education that were effective for their goals, so passing the exams.

“Another explanation is also around the illusions I mentioned previously, so when people think that learning is easy, it must be that what they’re doing is good, whereas the opposite is true. But when you must put in a lot of effort, it might render the studying process less attractive if you have other activities to do.”

Are the correct learning techniques something that students should find out by themselves or something that they should be taught about?

“The latter, I think. Learning, teaching and practicing with these correct studying techniques so that they can experience the positive outcomes of the methods would be important to do. If you show students that using spaced practice, so practicing over extended and systematic periods of time, will make them better at remembering than cramming, it will allow them to experience that positive effect and use that technique.”

What would be the most important learning principle you could give to a student to help them study less but more effectively?

“Spaced practice and retrieval studying. With spaced practice you would study the same amount of time, but it would give you a better outcome than if you cram them. Retrieval practice also works better than restudying. For example, if you compare two hours of studying and rereading versus one hour of studying and one hour of trying to recall information from previous chapters through questions or flashcards for example, the latter would be more efficient because you would remember more from what you learned than from what you re-read.”

What are some examples of spaced learning, and retrieval practices that students could use?

“Flashcards, so small cards with a question on one side and the answer on the other, work well to retrieve information that you previously learned but also practice testing without using a book. So, for example, explaining something to yourself and then checking whether you did well. Explaining it to other people might also work. Any method that really involves retrieving information from memory is an important mechanism.

“With spacing, it’s more about good planning, and spreading your study efforts over time to involve accumulation. So, you would study chapter one in the first week, then chapter one and two in the second week, and so on. This, in combination with retrieval practice, so trying to remember information from chapter one, are good strategies to use.”

Hypothetically, what could you imagine would happen to students if they implement correct retrieval and spaced repetition practices?

“The largest impact would be the learning process. These learning practices would create a stronger, organized and connected thought process. They will also have an impact on the long-term, as you might remember something for longer, or you will easily pick up related information in the future.”