September 8th, 2022

What are the most effective ways to study?

Rereading

• Most studies are on massed rereading (back-to-back), which is easier to study, not spaced rereading.
  • This is low ecological validity (how real a study’s scenario is)

Note-taking

• Laptop note-takers do more verbatim notes, handwritten can’t keep up so they don’t
• Laptop vs. handwritten were equal on factual recall
• Handwritten performs better on conceptual test
• Hand-writing notes seems to force active learning

Outlining

• Teacher-generated outlines
  • Skeletal (incomplete) outlines better than complete outlines or transcripts
• Learner-generated outlines
  • Read through entire text, then outline

Flash cards

• This is called retrieval practice
• Recalling information helps consolidate it
• Don’t be “done” with a card until you get it right 3 times

Listening to music while studying

• Listening to pop music hampers the ability to answer reading comprehension questions (Anderson & Fuller, 2010)
• Memory is best under silence, next is music without lyrics, worst is music with lyrics
• Music affects introverts more negatively than extroverts