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Studying Techniques
Abstract
One of the biggest parts of college is studying. There are many different study techniques that students use throughout their education, but what study techniques help students learn? Most students tend to use study techniques that aren’t as effective as others. The easiest study techniques are assumed to be most effective because students don’t have enough knowledge about them to prove otherwise. In this paper, you will read of a study that myself, as well as my classmates, have done with data from two different college psychology classes. One class learned about the study techniques with a video and the other class learned through articles by other psychologists. The participants were given surveys throughout their course and rated their knowledge, usage, and how effective they thought the study techniques were. The study techniques that were taken into consideration during the study were the following: rereading the textbook, highlighting, practice tests, and using flashcards. Each of these combined with the participants knowledge of, GPA, and usage of them allowed us to collect data on which of them were the most effective. The usage of highlighting, rereading, and using flashcards did not seem to be effective as our other study techniques, there was no significant correlation compared to practice tests. Every strategy promotes a different part of learning to students, some allow students to comprehend while others only allow students to remember until they no longer need the information. In this paper, you will read the statistics and see just how effective some of these strategies, the usage of, and having the knowledge of them can help students.


One of the biggest parts of going to school and learning, is the study strategies that students use to learn. Studying strategies allow students to feel more confident in their academics, lessen their anxiety about exams, and help students remember and apply their knowledge to future situations or careers. In this study, we are looking at the effectiveness of study strategies and how they correlate to time spent studying, how difficult the class is, and how the usage of each allows students to gain more knowledge. Every student is taught at a young age different type of studying strategies but being able to actively use them correctly is more effective for the future.


There are ten different type of common studying strategies: practice testing, distributed practice, interleaved practice, elaborative interrogation, self-explanation, rereading, highlighting, summarization, keyword mnemonic, and imagery for text. Practice testing and distributed practice seem to be the most effective of the ten, practice testing is what it sounds like, practice test, it lets students figure out the content that they have learned and lets them see what they might need to go back and look over. Distributed practice lets you focus on one topic at a time to not get confused or overwhelmed by other information not necessary. The other eight are known to be least effective, but more commonly used. Interleaved practice, or “mass practice”, uses different topics or problems all at once to allow you to apply knowledge from one problem to another. Elaborative interrogation is trying to prove why something is true, this strategy makes you ask “why?”, it makes you really think of all the content you have learned so far and use it to convince yourself or others that the statement is true. Self-explanation is relating new information to prior knowledge, this can help students understand a topic better from the prior knowledge and keeps students focused on the topic. Rereading is exactly that, rereading, students tend to use this strategy because its easy and less time consuming than others, after reading something repeatedly, it will eventually get stuck in your head. Highlighting is maring the important information of content that you can see later to know that you need to study it. Summarization is making sense of something in less words, this helps students use their own words to understand the big idea of what the author is trying to explain. Keywprd mnemonic is using specific words to remember a different word or phrase, imagery for text is creating a picture inside your mind of how something works or would look like. Keyword mnemonic and imagery for text go hand in hand, they both let students imagine their own thought process of content. Each study technique is different in their own way, and work for different types of students, but not all of them are effective in the long run, only for short term periods.
Blasiman and colleagues (2017) conducted a study that investigated if students use the best study strategies, if they do, how often do they use them? And if they use ineffective studies, why do they use them? They used a survey to gather data on students' study behaviors and the effectiveness of each study strategy. The survey included questions that required more precise responses, such as the number of minutes students studied the day before an exam. The survey also asked students to rank the various strategies. The researchers sent out a follow-up survey six times throughout a 16-week semester. The follow-up surveys focused on how students were currently studying, including what, how much, and when they were studying. To get more accurate information, the surveys were sent out around the times of exams. This allowed researchers to see the habits of the students leading up to the exams. With each survey close to the exam, it let researchers see if the habits changed or if they stayed consistent. The researchers found that there was a discrepancy between the students' intended use of certain strategies and their actual usage. According to the study, students reported that they intended to rely heavily on reading and copying their notes, using flashcards, and taking practice tests. When it came time to study for the exams, these strategies were used less frequently compared to the other strategies. Students reported during the surveys that they were using less effective strategies such as rereading and summarizing more often than the more effective strategies. The students were aware of the more effective strategies but chose to do the least effective strategies. The inconsistency showed that with less study time, more least effective strategies were used. The study found that although students understood the effectiveness of certain strategies, they did not understand the effect it would take on them and their academics.
The current study is a partial replication of the study conducted by Blasiman and colleagues (2017). While using Blasiman and colleagues (2017) study, we’ve also included a comparison of experimental learning versus video learning of study strategies. We are interested in investigating if there is a correlation between the difficulty of a class and the amount of time spent studying, if there is a relationship between usage of study strategy and the effectiveness of it, and if there is a correlation between knowledge of study strategies and actual usage of the most effective strategy. We hypothesize that having knowledge of the strategies and using them correctly can make a difference in your academics.
Methods

Participants
There were 147 participants in our study from Dr. Chens classes PSY 340W and PSY 309W. Of those participants, 128 were female (87.1%) and 19 of them were male (12.9%). The age range of these participants was between 18 and 66, with a mean of 27.7 (SD=9.76). This included 119 white participants (81%), 2 American Indian or Alaska native participants (1.4%), 5 African American participants (3.4%), 9 Hispanic or Latino participants (6.1%), and 1 Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander participant (0.7%). The 11 remaining participants did not report their ethnicity (7.5%). The participants GPA ranged from 1.3 to 4.0, with a mean of 3.29 (SD= 0.537).
Materials and Procedures
The first thing to be done for the experiment to begin was to process of informed consent where it was explained what was going to be studied and what the participants would be doing. The participants were given surveys throughout the course of 8 weeks. The surveys asked various type of questions, including but not limited to, their age, GPA, ethnicity, ratings on different types of studying techniques, how much time spent on studying, and knowledge of each study technique. The two classes in the experiment each took a different approach to learning about the study techniques. In PSY 340W, they read articles and learned in depth about each technique and its effectiveness, this class used experimental learning. In PSY 309W, the students watched videos on each study technique and learned how to use them while studying, this class used video learning. In the experiment, the dependent variables used were the rating of effectiveness of rereading the textbook, rating of effectiveness of practice testing, and rating the knowledge of each study technique. Each of the variables were analyzed in the final survey given to the participants, comparing them to the initial survey given to the participants before learning in depth about each.
Results
Our results indicated that there was a negative correlation between participants ratings of the effectiveness of rereading the textbook [r(66)=0.15, p>0.05]. Participants in PSY 340W reported rereading the textbook less effective than those in PSY 309W. We also conducted a correlational analysis between the classes ratings of effectiveness of taking practice test. The results indicated that there was a negative correlation[r(66)=0.01, p>0.05]. Participants in both classes rated effectiveness of practice test very similar, although more students in PSY 340W rated it more effective than those in PSY 309W. We also conducted a correlational analysis between the classes’ ratings on overall knowledge of the study techniques. The results indicated that there was a positive correlation[r(66)=0.24, p<0.05]. Participants in PSY 340W reported having more knowledge about the study techniques than those in PSY 309W.
Teaching method (video vs. experimental learning) had a significant effect on students rating of effectiveness of the rereading the textbook strategy [t(115)= -4.9, p<0.05]. Participants in PSY 340W with experimental learning as the independent variable, rated the rereading strategies (our dependent variable) less effective (M= 3.07, SD= 0.97) than participants in in PSY 309W (video learning) (M= 3.84, SD= 0.58). The effects of teaching method on ratings of effectiveness of the practice test strategy was analyzed. We found that there was not a significant effect of teaching method on ratings of practice test [t(119)= -0.85, p>0.05]. Participants in PSY 340W (experimental learning) rated the practice test strategies very similar (M=4.24, SD=0.75) compared to participants in in PSY 309W (video learning) (M=4.37, SD=0.91). The ratings of knowledge on the teaching methods were analyzed. We found that there was a significant rating of knowledge on teaching methods [t(119)=-4.9, p>0.05]. Participants in PSY 340W (experimental learning) rated their knowledge on teaching methods (M=4.44, SD=0.70) (M=2.31, SD= 0.8) higher than participants in in PSY 309W (video learning) (M=2.31, SD= 0.8).
Discussion
Study techniques are used throughout our education, how do we know which are effective and will help students learn? In this study, we looked at which were effective in correlation with the participants usage of, knowledge of, and GPA. Our results showed us that the class that read articles, in comparison with those that watched a video, were able to rank the more effective techniques like practice tests higher, while the less effective techniques, like rereading, were rated lower. Teaching kids how to use the study techniques and explaining how they all work allow students to choose which would work best for them, as well as allow them to be knowledgeable about each one. Students are told from a young age what their options are to study, but no one teaches them how to use each technique or how they improve their learning. A way to provide students with knowledge of these techniques would be to provide a class or to work with kids through the techniques showing them how with different subjects. Previous studies have shown similar results to which techniques are used more and which techniques are effective. A previous study done showed that most students use ineffective techniques because they are easy and convenient. Students tend to use them whenever they don’t make the time to properly study (Blasiman et al., 2016). A different previous study discussed the in depths of each study technique. This article stated that practice tests is mostly rated less effective, but it is the most effective (Dunlosky, 2013). Some limitations in the study are that it was done with two psychology classes. Different concentrations of study need different kinds of studying as well as different time commitments to the studying. Something we could have done differently with the study is using participants that are majoring in medical studies or criminal justice. I, personally, could’ve looked at the results a little closer and done different kinds of analysis with them rather than just the correlation and t-tests. In future research I would like to see different levels of students such as graduate or master programs students. I would also like to see different study techniques against different types of test such as online or in person tests or a final exam compared to a scheduled test.

You can ask ChatGPT to review your work and give it a score.

A spell check would also be useful unless Keywprd is the mnemonic

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Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia