by Amanda Schartel, Pharm.D., PGY2 Ambulatory Care
Resident, University of Maryland School of Pharmacy
Take a minute and
think back on the hundreds of quizzes, tests, and other assessments you have
taken during your years in school.
Remember the countless hours and late nights you put in trying to learn everything
in time? Now think about how much of
that information you actually remember days, weeks, months, and years
later. If you’re like me, you probably realize just how much of that information you have forgotten. While you put in a lot of time and
effort studying, the information learned was all too soon forgotten. This is due, in part, to the ineffective and
inefficient study strategies that most of us employ. As
students progress on to college and graduate school, poor study habits becomes
a bigger problem as the material becomes increasing complex. This problem is particularly important for
students training to become healthcare professionals given the fast pace at
which medical information changes.1
Student Perceptions and Use of Study Strategies
In order to help
our students succeed, we must first identify what study strategies they
currently use and what perceptions they have about effective ways to
learn. A survey of undergraduate
students at a top university found that repeated re-reading was the most common
study strategy (83.6%) with more than half of the students ranking re-reading
as their preferred study strategy. One
of the least common study strategies used was self-testing (10.7%). And the majority of these students avoided self-testing
if they could not go back to re-read the material.2
These findings
are similar to a study conducted by Hagemeier and colleagues who surveyed pharmacy students about their study habits. They found that only 11.6%
of students would self-test if they did not have the option of going back to re-read
the material. Half of the students
reported that if they self-tested, it was to see what they had learned. Only a third of the students believed self-testing
helped them learn more. The majority of
students stated that spreading out study sessions was beneficial,
but only 17% scheduled study sessions in advance and 60.2% reported that they
crammed for exams.
The majority of students state that their study habits are NOT based on formal instruction on how to study.1 This suggests that most students have never been trained to study in effective ways. Interventions by educators may give students the tools needed to succeed.
The majority of students state that their study habits are NOT based on formal instruction on how to study.1 This suggests that most students have never been trained to study in effective ways. Interventions by educators may give students the tools needed to succeed.
(In)Effective Study Strategies
We now know that
many students use re-reading as their preferred study strategy. But is this
actually an effective way to study? Are there other study strategies that are
more effective?
While re-reading
is common, it has only modest benefits on learning.3 Re-reading is most effective when there is
a short delay between readings. It is not
effective when the material is re-read immediately following the initial
reading. Re-reading is most useful for
recall-based tasks, and its effects on comprehension are questionable. In head-to-head studies, re-reading has been
found to be inferior to several other study strategies, including self-testing,
elaborative interrogation, and self-explanation.3 Students may be under the false impression
that re-reading is an effective strategy because they are committing a great
amount of time when using this strategy.
But this may be a “labor-in-vain” phenomenon, whereby spending extra
time memorizing information does not promote meaningful learning.2
In a comprehensive review of learning techniques by Dunlosky and colleagues, re-reading,
summarization, highlighting/underlining, keyword mnemonic, and imagery for text
were identified as a low utility learning strategies.3 This was based on research showing that these
techniques do not increase performance, lead only to short-term retention of
information, and are only helpful for some students and in some contexts.3
So if these
commonly used learning strategies are ineffective, which strategies would be
more effective for students to use?
Dunlosky and colleagues identified two high utility strategies: self-testing and distributed practice.3 Both of these strategies benefit learners of
different ages and abilities, as well as increase performance across many tasks
and contexts.2
Self-Testing
The literature
has described the concept of the “testing effect” since the 1600s. It suggests that the act of retrieving
information from memory increases long-term retention.1 Also, it has been proposed that self-testing
may improve performance by enhancing how students mentally organize and process
information.2 The testing
effect is not just limited to formal assessments, but can also be seen when
students practice recall on their own (i.e. complete practice problems, use flashcards). In a study of first-year medical students by
West and colleagues, researchers found that self-testing was a significant
predictor of first-semester final grades and practical examination averages.4
Distributed
Practice
We know that many
students typically pack their studying into a short period of time before an
exam. While this may lead to short-term
retention of the material, it has been shown that spreading out study
activities over time, or distributed practice, has greater benefits and leads
to long-term retention. This may be because
distributed study sessions force students to repeatedly retrieve previous
knowledge, which is known to reinforce memory and retention. Furthermore, when study sessions are spaced
out, it forces the student to work harder to retrieve the information from
memory and allows them to more accurately assess their understanding.3
Similar to self-testing, West and colleagues found that time
management—including maintaining a study schedule—was a significant predictor
of first-semester final grades and written examination averages.4
Help Students Adopt Better Study Habits
Given that many
students use study strategies that are less than optimal, educators should provide
guidance to students about the value of alternative strategies such as
self-testing and distributed practice.
Furthermore, structuring instruction to encourage students to use these
strategies, such as creating practice problem sets for self-testing, can help
the students to become successful lifelong learners.
References
- Hagemeier NE, Mason HL. Student pharmacists’ perceptions of testing and study strategies. Am J Pharm Educ. 2011;75:Article 35.
- Karpicke JD, Butler AC, Roediger HL. Metacognitive strategies in student learning: do students practise retrieval when they study on their own? Memory 2009;17:471-9.
- Dunlosky J, Rawson KA, Marsh EJ, Nathan MJ, Willingham DT. Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychol Sci Public Interest 2013; 14:4-58.
- West C, Sadoski M. Do study strategies predict academic performance in medical school? Med Educ. 2011;45:696-703.
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