Effective studying can make the difference between a dream experience versus a nightmare in tough courses. Many people don't know how to maximize their studying efforts. Fortunately however, effective studying is a skill that can absolutely be learned and mastered!
This guide provides an easy-to-follow, scientifically-proven method for maximizing studying results.
To learn how to most effectively study, it's important to understand some basics about how human memory works. Generally, memory consists of at least two distinct processes:
These two memory processes are somewhat independent of one another and must each be individually practiced.
Storing information in your brain that you can't easily retrieve is a futile effort.
Recognition is the easiest form of remembering. It relies on your brain simply identifying which bits of information are most familiar. It also provides your brain with lots of hints and clues that help with the memory retrieval process. As an example, consider the following question:
What was George Washington's wife's name?
If you're at least somewhat familiar with presidential history, a. Martha will jump out at you as the correct answer, as your brain readily recognizes a familiar name associated with George Washington.
Recall is a much harder form of remembering. It requires your brain to retrieve information without many hints. You can't just simply recognize the information based on how familiar it feels. You have to independently retrieve what's stored in your brain, with little, if any, contextual clues. As an example, consider the following question:
What was Abraham Lincoln's wife's name?
Stumped? That's completely normal. You probably already know the answer. Her name is probably already stored (i.e., encoded) in your brain. You probably just can't pull it up into memory easily. After all, Abraham Lincoln is easily just as famous of a president as is George Washington. Try Googling the answer, and see if you suddenly realize that you already knew it all along.
Many students simply read and reread information from lecture slides, lecture notes, and the textbook, trying to memorize it as much as possible. This is certainly helpful for encoding the information into memory!
However, it is completely possible to have information stored in your brain that you simply can't retrieve. Thus, it's also very important to repeatedly practice retrieval. It's critical to practice trying to remember the information you've studied, in addition to simply trying to cram as much information as possible into your brain.
Students are often confused that they "know" information, but weren't able to express their knowledge in essays or on exams. This can occur because students oftentimes look at their notes, the lecture slides, or the textbook and readily recognize course terms and concepts as being quite familiar. However, they've frequently never practiced the much harder act of recalling course terms and concepts from scratch. Thus, despite the fact that they can recognize course concepts when presented with them, they can't freely recall the information without lots of hints and clues.
Quite simply put, emphasize quizzing yourself on the material, especially focusing on recall. There are many ways you can do this. The simplest method is to create flash cards.
For each flash card, write a single course concept on the front:
Write the definition of the course concept on the back:
Shuffle your deck of flash cards, course concepts facing upward. Look at each course concept and try to recall its definition.
For example, imagine you see the following course concept:
Can you recall the definition? Keep reshuffling and practicing your entire deck of flash cards until you can freely recall all definitions correctly for each course concept, multiple reshuffles and attempts in a row.
Shuffle your deck of flash cards, definitions facing upward. Look at each definition and try to recall the course concept name.
For example, imagine you see the following definition:
Can you recall the correct course concept name? Keep reshuffling and practicing your entire deck of flash cards until you can freely recall all course concept names correctly for each definition, multiple reshuffles and attempts in a row.
You may wonder why this step is necessary. Again, retrieval is a memory process that must be practiced in order to perfect it. If you only practice retrieving definitions when seeing the names of course concepts, you won't be able to remember the name of a course concept when presented with a clear example of its definition. Thus, you need to practice retrieving course concept names when seeing only the definition, as well as practicing retrieving definitions when you only see the concept name.
In the same way that you're not going to learn how to properly throw a baseball in a single day, you're not going to memorize all course concepts and definitions (and practice recall well) in a single day.
Thus, you should use your flash card deck regularly in the days and weeks leading up to any exam or assessment. Go through the flash card deck—forwards and backwards—several times, at least a few days apart. Make sure you're able to perfectly rehearse all flash cards each time you practice.
To ensure that you understand course concepts, you can also try to "teach" them to a stuffed animal, toy, or picture of a friend.
It is oftentimes through trying to teach a concept that you fully learn it.
Simply try to explain the concept to the toy/picture as if you were a lecturer trying to teach the concept to them.
If you can't adequately explain a course concept to your toy/photo, it likely means that you don't fully understand it. Rereading your notes, the lecture slides, and the textbook will likely help. So will practicing recall with flash cards. If you're still stuck, after repeatedly studying all relevant materials and practicing your flash cards multiple times, contact your course instructor for further help!