What are the best ways to learn ?

I am sure many of us now are realising that the days and months are going quicker and quicker, and before long the exam season will be here upon us. Even though it is a task many of us loathe to do, revision is an important task needed to be done. Therefore, we decided to investigate what are the most successful ways to study and revise, which may hopefully help all of us !

A new study says taking practice tests and engaging in distributed practice -- which means sticking to a schedule of spreading out your studying over time -- work the best. Surprisingly, the methods that were least effective when it came to getting a good grade on the big test were: summarization, highlighting, keyword mnemonics, creating imagery for text and re-reading. Therefore I am afraid just highlighting your notes, does not mean you have revised, sorry!

"I was shocked that some strategies that students use a lot -- such as re-reading and highlighting -- seem to provide minimal benefits to their learning and performance," study author Dr. John Dunlosky, professor of psychology and director of experimental training at Kent State University, said in a written statement. "By just replacing re-reading with delayed retrieval practice, students would benefit."

Ten different learning techniques were reviewed Dunlosky and his team and their review was published in the January 2013 issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest.

The widely-used learning methods examined were:

• Elaborative interrogation: Generating an explanation for why an explicitly stated fact or concept is true
• Self-explanation: Explaining how new information is related to known information, or explaining steps taken during problem solving
• Summarization: Writing summaries (of various lengths) of to-be-learned texts
• Highlighting/underlining: Marking potentially important portions of to-be-learned materials while reading
• Keyword mnemonic: Using keywords and mental imagery to associate verbal materials
• Imagery for text: Attempting to form mental images of text materials while reading or listening
• Re-reading: Re-studying text material again after an initial reading
• Practice testing: Self-testing with flash cards or taking practice tests over to-be-learned material
• Distributed practice: Implementing a schedule of practice that spreads out study activities over time
• Interleaved practice: Implementing a schedule of practice that mixes different kinds of problems, or a schedule of study that mixes different kinds of material, within a single study session
But as mentioned previously, the two best were taking practice tests and engaging in distributed practice.

So now you know have to revise, it is now just a matter of when !

Victoria Kersey - Donovan and Lisa Murphy