5 Most effective ways to study

Since the time of Greek thinkers man is searching for ways to study and memorize effectively. Now a team of researchers led by John Dunlosky has unveiled number of ways in which educators can enhance the effectiveness of learning for their students. Moreover, teaching these strategies to students can also help saving the cost on education and save you from becoming the next target of PEEDA (Punjab employees’ efficiency, discipline and accountability) act.

Surprisingly the most popular methods of study are least effective. Most popular ways are highlighting, rereading, rot learning, and massed practice. 

These methods can help enhance students understanding and ability to apply learned concepts

The most effective ways found are :-

Testing and distributed practice

Tests are termed as necessary evil of our education system but the research showed that testing is a very good way to learn. Teachers can make testing less threatening for students by making them less dramatic and more frequent.  Giving weight age to class tests and quizzes in examination is a good way to make tests fun and less threatening.

Another effective strategy is distributive practicing

Unlike Massed practice, which is done multiple times before moving to the next lesson, distributive practice is spreading your practice over a period of time.  This distributive practice is very effective.

Other promising strategies to learn but enough research have not been done yet are:-

Interleaved practice

Interleaved practice goes one step forward then distributive practice. It is like distributive practice spread over a period of time but this also involves mixing practice of different materials, in a single study session. This can produce good results if already acquired level of expertise in a given subject matter is of high degree.

Elaborative interrogation and self explanation

Elaborative interrogation is trying to explain why some given fact is true. While self explanation is trying to explain how the given information is related to the previous learned information.

Less useful strategies are rereading, summarizing, highlighting, keyword mnemonics, imagery for text are some of the least effective strategies. Although summarization can be helpful in some cases but it needs time to learn hence making it less time and cost effective.