Are Your Study Habits Hurting Your Grades?

Everybody thinks they know how to study. There is so much information that is repeated and ingrained

into every student’s brain that there is no reason to question effectiveness of the common methods.

Recent studies have called some of these ideas into question though by providing some evidence based

data to the study lore.

Below are some research based study methods that will help you improve your study habits and

hopefully your grades and understanding of a subject.

Alternate the place where you study can help improve retention. One experiment had one group of college students study a list of vocabulary words in two distinctly different places and another group limit their studying to one room. The group that changed their location did far better. This finding has been confirmed in several subsequent studies. (Carey D.1) Check out this list of great study spaces at D'Youville (not all are in the Montante Family Library).

Do you believe that you remember information better from watching a video than from reading or that you learn better from visual material than from listening to a lecture? Many people believe they learn information better using a particular style of learning and try to use this mode exclusively. These "learning styles" have been widely studied and there is almost no evidence supporting them (Straumanis 6). Alternating what you study and how you study during a session is far more effective than concentrating on one thing alone. Using a mix of learning styles such as auditory, visual, verbal and social during a study session will give you better results. For example you might try reading text, viewing images or models, reciting terminology aloud and quizzing yourself all in a single session rather than just concentrating on one of these modes during your study time. This does not mean multitasking however, which is not only counter productive in terms of remembering anything but is also bad for your health (Naish 38).

Space out your studies. Many experiments have shown that cramming is ineffective for anything other than short term superficial memorization. As much as 70% of what you have read or heard is quickly forgotten. (Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel ) When information is carefully acquired through shorter study sessions over longer periods of time it gives the information time to marinate. Not being able to remember a parts of what you study should not be looked upon as frustrating when using this study technique. Scientists believe that it is the relearning of forgotten material that makes it stick in your mind better for test time. (Carey D.1) There are a number of calendar and planning apps out there to help you keep organized including this freely available online study planner.

Tests are not just for teachers. We understand that tests may make you uncomfortable, but it is this discomfort that may make them more effective for learning. Repeated practice of any skill including taking a test can usually improve results. You can create your own tests and quizzes but they will probably be pretty easy to pass. Luckily for the anatomy student, the Visible Body program from the library comes equipped with an easy to use quiz module with hundreds of questions from all areas of the body.

Now you have no excuse for not doing well on that exam (here is a tutorial on how to create an excuse

for your instructor to those that did not heed the pointers above- unfortunately it also requires some

planning).

Dog really ate my study guide!

Biblio Bulletin