Ten Study Strategies for Students and Their Teachers

college student studying
Here’s one of those articles that really shouldn’t be missed, particularly for those with interest in making teaching and learning more evidence-based. Current thinking about evidence-based teaching and learning tends to be more generic than specific. Use any active learning strategy intermittently or even regularly, and some would call the teaching evidence-based. That’s a superficial understanding of what it means to use practices that have been proven to promote learning. This article leads to a deeper level of understanding. It’s a review of mostly cognitive psychology research that explores 10 learning techniques. The cognitive psychologist authors provide the background. “Psychologists have been developing and evaluating the efficacy of techniques for study and instruction for more than 100 years. Nevertheless, some effective techniques are underutilized—many teachers do not learn about them, and hence many students do not use them, despite evidence suggesting that the techniques could benefit student achievement and with little added effort. Also, some learning techniques that are popular and often used by students are relatively ineffective.” (p. 5) Here are brief descriptions of the 10 learning strategies reviewed in the article.
  • Elaborative interrogation—generating an explanation for why some fact or concept is true
  • Self-explanation—explaining how new information is related to what is already known, or explaining steps taken during problem solving
  • Summarization—writing summaries of text content to expedite learning the material
  • Highlighting/underlining—marking potentially important text passages while reading
  • Keyword mnemonic—using keywords and mental imagery to associate verbal materials
  • Imagery for text—attempting to form mental images of text material while reading or listening
  • Rereading—reading text material again after having read it initially
  • Practice testing—self-testing or taking practice tests on the material to be learned
  • Distributed practice—scheduling practice so that it spreads study activities over time
  • Interleaved practice—mixing different kinds of problems or materials within a single study session

To continue reading, you must be a Teaching Professor Subscriber. Please log in or sign up for full access.

One Response

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related Articles

I have two loves: teaching and learning. Although I love them for different reasons, I’ve been passionate about...
Recently, a student sent me a political news article with the comment “Things are falling apart.” I didn’t...
You’ve prepared a fabulous, interactive class. You’ve designed engaging activities, developed meaningful discussion questions, and cultivated an inviting...
AI has become a part of nearly all facets of teaching, from lesson development to exam creation to...
Navigating the gulf between the most and least prepared students in a course can seem like an insurmountable...
I’ve taught a course in statistics for psychological research for almost 40 years. No student becomes a psych...
My course is literally about teaching reading to young children, a challenge given that research suggests that college...

Create a free account, or log in.

Gain access to limited free articles, news alerts, and select newsletters

Login here

Get unlimited access to The Teaching Professor

Stay informed. Subscribe Now.

WELCOME OFFER

$19.00 $14.00/month

for your first 6 months. Use coupon code TP6MO.

$19.00 thereafter. Cancel anytime.

Enjoy unlimited access to all of The Teaching Professor

You only have  free article views remaining.

WELCOME OFFER

$19.00 $14.00/month

for your first 6 months. Use coupon code TP6MO.

$19.00 a month thereafter. Cancel anytime.

Are you signed up for free weekly Teaching Professor updates?

You'll get notified of the newest articles.