Just in time for the start of the school year, two studies published in the August edition of Current Directions in Psychological Science are shedding light on effective learning practices.
The first focuses on "metacomprehension," our ability to judge how thoroughly we understand a given subject and gauge how to proceed in learning more. The study, compiled by Kent State researchers John Dunlosky and Amanda Lipko, found that the majority of people participating were not very accurate in assessing how well they learned complex subjects. Consequently Dunlosky and Lipko sought techniques to improve the accuracy of people's perception of their learning and reported the following:
The practice of rereading and summarizing text as you go along, helps one to more accurately evaluate how they are learning and retaining what's in the text. Additionally, focusing on the most important details of a text -- attempting to recall them from memory then going back and comparing the recalled information with the correct answer improves one's ability to accurately determine how well ideas, concepts, and information have been retained.The second study focused on "overlearning," the practice of studying material immediately after you've learned it. Doug Rohr, a psychologist at the University of Southern Florida, and Hal Pasher of the University of Southern California explored the question of just how much is too much when it comes to studying.
In their study, students studied new vocabulary words in two ways. One group ran through the list five times, while the others drilled themselves ten times. In the first group, no one got a perfect score more than once, while all students in the second has at least three.
Students were quizzed a week later. Not surprisingly, students from the second group performed better. However, when quizzed four weeks later, they showed no advantage over the first group, suggesting that repetitive learning isn't useful long-term.
Rohrer and Pashler also wanted to see if the duration of study breaks might make a difference in learning. It did: When two study sessions were separated by breaks ranging from five minutes to six months, with a final test given six months later, students did much better if their break lasted at least a month. So, rather than distribute their study of some material across just a few days, as millions of school children do when given a different list of vocabulary or spelling words each week, students would be better off seeing the same words throughout the school year.
Rohrer and Pashler had similar results with math and other forms of abstract learning. This contradicts the way most textbooks are set up, with students working on problems from today's lesson only, rather than a mix of concepts learned throughout the year.
Results from both sets of research seem to support what teachers have been telling us all along:
Don't wait until the last minute to study, "cramming" isn't an effective long-term tool.
Break your work up into smaller, manageable pieces.
Make special note of the important concepts covered.
Test yourself against the material presented.
Build on what you did in the past; review not only what you just learned, but what came before.
ABSTRACT:Metacomprehension: A Brief History and How to Improve Its Accuracy
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