What doesn’t work so well when it comes to preparing for exams?
Many people use re-reading as a study strategy. In fact, it’s extremely popular among students to re-read their textbooks over and over, highlighting them, underlining them, even summarizing them. However, it turns out that re-reading is actually not that effective of a studying tool.
In a study conducted by Callender & McDaniel, The limited benefits of rereading educational texts, they demonstrate through four different experiments that re-reading is not as effective as we thought. In their experiment, participants read educational texts and then were tested on the material. With only a few exceptions, the participants who re-read the text did not significantly increase their testing performance. As Brown et al. puts it:
Essentially, while re-reading may seem like a simple and effective studying solution, it actually takes up more time than it’s worth and doesn’t create long-lasting connections because it does not require the re-reader to actively study.
Brown et al. also discuss that mindless repetition is not a successful study strategy either, since simply being able to repeat something does not necessarily mean you understand it or could apply that information in different ways. So if you find yourself studying for an exam by re-reading or repeating facts to yourself over and over, you may not be giving yourself the leg up that you expect.
So what can you do instead? What would make studying for your exams actually worth your time? How can you learn information more thoroughly and accurately? Here’s where active recall (or active retrieval) comes in. Brown et al. wrote:
Instead of rereading a text, try creating a set of flashcards either with notecards or with an app on your phone. Practicing flashcards will help you learn which information you already know, and which information you need to practice more. You’ll also be forced to think harder about each flashcard question, further strengthening your brain’s ability to retrieve the information. This method is a simple and effective way to practice active retrieval.
Brown et al. also recommend, of course, giving yourself practice quizzes. If your teacher has given you practice quizzes to use, that’s great. But if not, you can make your own by writing down questions as you read. Then, when you’re done reading the material, close your book and try answering all the questions you wrote down for yourself.
Retrieval practices such as these have shown to be much more effective than any other study method. For example, experiments conducted by Roediger & McDaniel in a school district illustrated that active retrieval improved students’ grades from a C+ to an A-, with benefits lasting the rest of the school year.
There is a ton of evidence to back active recall and we have listed a couple of studies below that we believe to be the most useful.
Spitzer 1939
In this study, they conducted an experiment where they split students into two groups the first group was to study the material as they normally would and then they would have a test on it a day later and a week later. The second group did the same except they had a practice test at the end of it here are the results. The students were separated into the top and bottom thirds decided by other factors. Here is the graph:
Karpicke & Blunt 2011
For this experiment, they split people into 4 groups the first read over the material the second read it four times the third drew spider diagrams and the fourth used active recall. This study is also useful because it didn’t just ask them verbatim questions they asked inference as well. As you can see here are the results and once again active recall wins it out. However, that was not all they had the third phase of study where they asked students what they thought was the best technique and as you can see from the results of that our intuition as to the best method of studying is often very misjudged.
If you're wholly convinced on the idea of never rereading, highlighting or summarising anything ever again and willing to implement the active recall method, then here are ways on how you can start.
Cornell Note Taking
A useful way of implementing this is the Cornell Note Taking System. This is where you divide a page in half; on one side you write notes and then write the corresponding questions on the other side. You cover the notes while you answer the questions.
Closed Book Spider diagrams
Lots of people draw spider diagrams however most people draw them open-book and then they read over their notes which is the worst possible combination of summarising and rereading. What we propose is to make one "master spider diagram" from the book and then what you can do is you can try to draw out the spider diagrams without the book or master spider diagram in front of you and once finished read the master spider diagram close it again and draw it again from scratch. Do this until you have it completely memorised. This is very good for memorising essay plans.
Anki
Anki is a really useful flashcard app that is useful as when you are confronted by a flashcard you are being asked a question and therefore directly taking advantage of active recall. Digital flashcards are more useful than physical ones as physical ones have to be organised and can be easily lost and digital ones automatically do spaced repetition (which if combined with Active recall is the ultimate study combo).
Practice Papers
Practice papers/past papers are endlessly useful as you are confronted with the exact type of questions that will be on the exam and in certain subjects, the same questions come up all the time so you might as well practice.
There are even more study methods you can use besides active recall to help enhance your studying. Brown et al. also promote the effectiveness of spaced repetition and interleaving. They explain that “practice that’s spaced out, interleaved with other learning, and varied, produces better mastery, longer retention, and more versatility.” So rather than cramming as much information as you can into one night of studying, it’s much more effective to space out your studying over time.
In a study by Nate Kornell, Optimising Learning Using Flashcards: Spacing Is More Effective Than Cramming, Kornell conducted three experiments where participants used a web-based study program to learn GRE-type word pairs. While 72% of the participants believed that cramming the flashcards would be more effective than spacing the learning out, the experiments actually proved that spacing was more effective than “massing” (or cramming) for 90% of the participants.
So next time you go to practice your flashcards, try spacing out how often you look at them, rather than looking at them just once.
Finally, interleaving is another effective study method where a student combines different topics together while studying, rather than blocking them separately. In a study conducted by Taylor & Rohrer, children who practiced interleaving during their studying saw worse performance during their study session but actually performed higher on final tests.
Unfortunately, while we’d all like to have an easy fix to studying — a way to make it all stick in our heads without having to put in more work — countless studies prove that it’s actually when we have more difficulties and put in more effort, that the information sticks. Brown et al. stated that “many teachers believe that if they can make learning easier and faster, the learning will be better. Much research turns this belief on its head: when learning is harder, it’s stronger and lasts longer.”
Brown et al.’s best advice for learning, then? Embrace difficulties. Embrace when you don’t get the answer right. It means you’re learning! Having a positive attitude then, even when you don’t get the flashcards right or you get stuck on a practice quiz question, may just be the most crucial technique for keeping up your study habit and acing your next exam.
References
Make it Stick, by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III and Mark A. McDaniel
The limited benefits of rereading educational texts
Test-Enhanced Learning in the Classroom: Long-Term Improvements From Quizzing
Optimising Learning Using Flashcards: Spacing Is More Effective Than Cramming
