Studying techniques have changed over the years from when I went to school. I will be discussing how I was taught to study when I was in school, a long time ago, and what I’ve discovered as the right ways to study now. There are changes and scientific data to support what I was taught wasn’t the right way.
I was taught to write information down, then copy it again, and again. I did lots of flash cards growing up, going over the same words repeatedly. I was told to highlight important information in my readings. Then re-read the information till I “got it”. These are examples of maintenance rehearsal which is being repetitive without thinking of the meaning or making links to other information. (Goldstein, 2014)
Now I know these are not the best ways to study. Re-reading gives the illusion of learning due to the information becoming more fluent and familiar. This doesn’t mean that you know the material. Highlighting the first time through starts to become automatic and not elaborative processing due to not making links to prior knowledge. Sarah Peterson did a survey in 1992, comparing students who highlighted and those that did not highlight. Ms. Peterson’s survey found no difference between the two groups on tested information. (Goldstein, 2014)
Then I read about elaboration, generate and test, organize, and take breaks as a better way to study. Elaboration or elaborative rehearsal involves processing information of material to be remembered by making links between information and prior knowledge. Generate and test is active involvement with the information, making up test questions and thinking of the questions or what the answers are to questions as you read the information. Organize is to take the information then put it into “trees” or use chunking to help maintain the information. Then there is taking breaks, which is very hard for me to do, but spacing effect has been proven to help with retaining the information by having short study sessions with breaks. (Goldstein, 2014)
Then there Is my favorite study technique flash cards, the best way to utilize them is to have a second set of cards with questions like “Give a real-life example of this concept.” Which takes the cards to an elaborate rehearsal making the information easier to retain. (Adragna, 2016)
The last studying tip I’ve employed to help with tests, is to spend up to ten minutes writing down my thoughts, feelings and doubts about the test I am about to take. Worrying impairs performance on tests due to being a distraction as it increases the load on working memory. (Goldstein, 2014)
Now that I am in college, using these new study skills explained to me by cognitive psychology, I am seeing positive results. Many of the ideas are new to me but implementing the study techniques has been easier than I expected. I still have issues with taking breaks but I am working on that daily.
References
Adragna, R. (2016, 02 20). Be Your Own Teacher: How to Study with Flashcards. Retrieved from learningscientists: https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2016/2/20-1?rq=flashcards
Goldstein, E. B. (2014). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience (4th Edition). In E. B. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience (4th Edition). (pp. 146, 180, 201-203). Cengage Limited
Hello Lori,
You made great points on how our working memory functions. The typical way of studying, like you mentioned, such as rereading and repeating, helps us to store memory and keep it from decaying in our short-term memory. (Goldstein, 2014). The articulatory rehearsal process is a great way to remember phrases and quick information; however, you are correct that it doesn’t help us understand the material. Creating better ways to study and understand exactly what is being study can help move this information into long-term working memory which is needed to explain complex cognitions such as understanding language, making decisions and solving problems. Understanding the connections between information is important in storage and better recall. (Goldstein, 2014). Repetition over a period of time with connection to real life situations, explanations to information, and ways to destress, like you mentioned, are great ways to keep long-term working memory functional and recollection easy and accessible.
Goldstein, E. B. (2014). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience (4th Edition).
I can certainly recall from my youth, reading and re-reading material over and over to memorize what was going to be on an exam. I would be able to respond to any question that pertained to that specific material at that specific time. It would be exceptionally difficult to remember or expound upon those ideas or concepts at a later date. This is not only because it was merely memorized, but also because I was engaging in maintenance rehearsal like the author. I could remember the concepts and functions but could not understand its practical application and how it would build upon concepts previously taught.
As the narrator points out, highlighting is merely enforcing what must be learned or memorized now, for this specific exam or topic. If there is no linkage between knowledge attained now and previous content, then there is no learning, just memorization of useful information now.
What can also help in proper learning is establishing a value system for different topics being tested. By establishing various thoughts, feelings, or values on certain topics, they are more likely to be remembered (Villasenor, 2021). For example, if you are having trouble remembering a certain topic, you can remember how you felt when someone exhibited that topic, or concept. This places a higher value on that concept because it means something to you. This practice makes it more likely that you will remember what you studied.
Villaseñor, J.J., Sklenar, A.M., Frankenstein, A.N., Levy, P.U. McCurdy, M.P., et al. Memory & Cognition Vol. 49, Iss. 6, (Aug 2021): 1082-1100. DOI:10.3758/s13421-021-01153-6
Depth of processing is an essential topic that exists for chapters that mentioned memory. Although it is not a popular vocabulary for the current study, which is mentioned in Goldstein’s textbook (Goldstein, 2014). It is still a topic that helps me make connections between concepts in the chapters. One of the concepts from the textbook is how you retrieve the knowledge depends on how you encode the knowledge to your brain (Goldstein, 2014). It is a refreshing concept for me, which is related to your topic as well.
I believe your experience is a familiar situation for most of the students in the world, which includes me as well. Indeed, lots of students are trying the old style of learning skills even now. Maybe because we are used to it. The custom is always hard to be changed or even be realized. As an example of shallow processing, maintenance rehearsal is a nice skill while we do not know anything about this world. When we are babies, this method is the only way we can learn. However, elders and teachers sometimes forget to teach us there is a new way of learning after we have relatively basic knowledge, and coincidentally few people realize it quickly through their own experience or books like us. So, once this concept gets spread or familiar in public, it might change the situation after our generation.
Reference
Goldstein, E. B. (2014). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience (4th Edition). Cengage Limited
In fact, cognitive psychology has a far-reaching impact on our life and learning. If we are good at using it, it can help us in learning. Just as the blogger said, for example, we can also know how learning is best for us through our understanding of the hippocampus. A research hint published in J Neurosci, Synapses in the hippocampus become stronger after sleep deprivation. This study supports the view that sleep may often weaken the effect of learning consolidation, allowing new learning after waking up. Sleep is considered to be synaptic (connection) after a day of learning The period of intensity recalibration to allow new learning the next day. Chiara cirelli of the University of Wisconsin Madison and his colleagues studied synapses in the hippocampus, a brain structure related to learning. Synaptic changes in this region were found in the comparison of two states after sleep and sleep deprivation in mice. Continuous learning during waking can lead to a net increase in synaptic potential and sleep deprivation Sleep is thought to adjust and balance the overall synaptic strength, and the strength and size of synapses are related. Therefore, scientists speculate that synapses will be larger when they stay awake and smaller after sleep. The experimental results show that compared with mice with 6-8 hours of sleep, the ASI size of mice with spontaneous awakening at night moves to a higher value, and there are more mice with forced awakening during the day Moreover, the density of axons in mice forced to wake up during the day also increased. The size of ASI was related to the number of presynaptic vesicles, but the proportion of vesicles obtained in mice forced to wake up during the day decreased, indicating presynaptic fatigue. Consistent with previous studies in the cortex, the researchers observed that the synapses in the hippocampus of mice kept awake for 6 ~ 7 hours were larger than those of mice after sleep , suggesting that it is stronger, so good sleep is actually the last supplementary process for learning, which is what cognitive psychology tells us.
Reference
Giovanna Maria Spano, Sebastian Weyn Banningh, William Marshall, Luisa de Vivo, Michele Bellesi, Sophia S Loschky, Giulio Tononi, Chiara Cirelli. Sleep deprivation by exposure to novel objects increases synapse density and axon-spine interface in the hippocampal CA1 region of adolescent mice. The Journal of Neuroscience, 2019; 0380-19 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0380-19.2019
Hi Lori,
You bring up some very important concepts about learning that have been widely misunderstood or incorrectly utilized within the education system, leading to people not studying in the most effective ways possible. I personally can relate to being told that writing something down over and over again would be a successful way to learn something, which it didn’t turn out to be upon application. This repetition reminds me of the introduction of The Simpsons, where Bart is writing down his wrongdoing on the board, over and over, yet we assume he never learns the “lesson” for this method.
Something that is also misunderstood is the need for sleep for accurate memory consolidation. The stereotype of studying is typically the all night cram session, filled with caffeine, in an attempt to stuff your mind with information before a test or exam. However, not only do these sessions typically leave folks in a bad emotional and physical shape for talking a test, not having adequate sleep between learning new information and then recalling it can be detrimental too. Being sleep deprived can reduce our ability to learn, so even if we’ve employed methods of learning associated with better consolidation, like linking the new information to a already know piece of information, our abilities can become weakened overall. So making sure we get enough sleep before a test might be more critical that spending those extra hours cramming!
References
Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School. (2007, December 18). Sleep, learning, and memory. Sleep, Learning, and Memory | Healthy Sleep. Retrieved October 27, 2021, from https://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/benefits-of-sleep/learning-memory
Goldstein, E. B. (2014). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience (4th Edition). Cengage Limited