Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits

[Elmore Furth]

The best strategies for learning are getting an update. Variation is not only the spice of life, it seems to facilitate learning.

. . . psychologists have discovered that some of the most hallowed advice on study habits is flat wrong. For instance, many study skills courses insist that students find a specific place, a study room or a quiet corner of the library, to take their work. The research finds just the opposite. In one classic 1978 experiment, psychologists found that college students who studied a list of 40 vocabulary words in two different rooms — one windowless and cluttered, the other modern, with a view on a courtyard — did far better on a test than students who studied the words twice, in the same room. Later studies have confirmed the finding, for a variety of topics.

Varying the type of material studied in a single sitting — alternating, for example, among vocabulary, reading and speaking in a new language — seems to leave a deeper impression on the brain than does concentrating on just one skill at a time.

The finding undermines the common assumption that intensive immersion is the best way to really master a particular genre, or type of creative work, said Nate Kornell, a psychologist at Williams College and the lead author of the study. “What seems to be happening in this case is that the brain is picking up deeper patterns when seeing assortments of paintings; it’s picking up what’s similar and what’s different about them,” often subconsciously.

None of which is to suggest that these techniques — alternating study environments, mixing content, spacing study sessions, self-testing or all the above — will turn a grade-A slacker into a grade-A student. Motivation matters. So do impressing friends, making the hockey team and finding the nerve to text the cute student in social studies.

Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits

[ixion]

1. I've found that a "one-size-fits-all" study pattern doesn't work

different people work best in different types of environments.

[Tikki]

2. Part of going to College (or any education) is to learn to adapt to new...

environments.



Tikki

[gtar100]

3. I suppose this could be extrapolated and applied to workers in cubes.

And why employers should be providing places to work - inside and outside - all around the building rather than putting employees into in one location and expecting them to stay there for hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month... ad infinitum.

But then people would be hard to control and we can't have that in a place of business.

[dimbear]

4. The best stimulus to memory is sudden pain, so if you can

afford to have a dominatrix stand by, that's about the best you can do. Prolly add a lot to the cost of an Ivy league education. It would go by faster, tho.

[Joe Chi Minh]

5. Or very much slower according to your taste!

[txlibdem]

6. Every person needs to find the study methods that work best for them.

But for the record, that is the only way I can learn. If I try to cram it all in at one time it won't work. I've got to have multiple study periods, study between classes, to get it all to stick. When I put the time into it I got A's. When I slacked off... well you know.