If Only They Knew: Which Techniques are more Effective in Order to Receive Higher Test Scores

In the section “Tips from the Science of Memory-for Studying and for Life”, found in our textbook, “Experience Psychology”, the Arthur Laura A. King discusses the importance of study habits. She addresses the skills needed to turn short-term memory into long-term memory through organizing, encoding, rehearsing and retrieving the information we study and memorize. “No matter what the model of memory you use, you can sharpen your memory by thinking deeply about the “material” of life and connecting the information to other things you know.” (King. 2013).

In the book ‘’How We Learn’’ Benedict Carey teaches readers that learning doesn't have to be an isolated chore but more a part of living. The author gives readers tactics and strategies that can be used when studying to make learning and test taking easier. Readers will be able to use these techniques in their daily lives.

This student’s preferred learning strategy compared to the learning strategy provided by V.A.R.K. is almost identical. The learning strategies that have been used throughout her education have always netted good results, which is evident by her grades. In the past other students have commented about her learning style and the amount of time spent on note taking, outlines, and writing out note cards, but she has perfected this process for her learning style.

After reading the article I want to change my study habits some. My goal is to implement the strategy previously mentioned. I think self-testing myself as I read will allow for much more long term absorption of material. In addition, to increasing the skills in how I read I want to learn to create study questions for myself. When study guides are not provided it’s easy to feel overwhelmed with the idea of exams. However, we can train ourselves to recognize important information and create our own study questions to be able to answer before exam day. Self-testing and self-created study questions are going to my new approach at studying.

When a student merely reviews the information in a textbook or notes, but doesn’t take the time to test themselves to see if they really understand what they are reading or if they review the test questions while looking at the answers, it can have a negative effect on their test scores. However, if the student were to alter their study patterns they could not only do better on the test, but retain more of the information.

The boy attempts to come up with words for the essay to put onto the paper. While he is trying to come up with the words he is staring blankly at his laptop wishing he could use it. He knows that it would be faster to finish the essay and easier for him to come up with something, but he also knows his teacher would not allow him to do it on the computer. If schools switched from textbooks to computers students could become driven to do work simply because they are comfortable with computers. Computers can help students learn faster and in certain cases, easier. Computers can also hold multiple textbooks on just one device, It has been proven that students get better scores on test while using a computer. Computers have better resources than a textbook contains. Better test scores are better for the average student so that they can increase their grades and raise their grade point average. While textbooks can be heavy in large amounts computers can hold tons of textbooks

When I do study I use maintenance rehearsal to implement the information in my head over and over again before the test by using my short-term memory. Delaying myself after encoding and testing myself after is very much useful. “Information that is important or meaningful is retrieved from Short-term memory and is encoded in Long-term memory” (Coon & Mitterer, 2014). But using elaborative rehearsal, I try to take that information and relate it with past information and memory cues from my long-term memory. I make a network model in my head from memory cues which assists in retrieving information easier. Elaborative rehearsal is exceedingly effective to helping me recognizing and retrieving information but through your long-term memory, maintenance rehearsal is highly effective by implementing that information in my head over and over by using my short-term

Tran suggests that ‘testing is undoubtedly a useful technique for promoting information acquisition’ (Tran, 2015, p.140). Self testing was a vital part of Trans experiment, the participants in the experiment studied and reviewed information by rereading or taking a test, the testing option produced the better results in the participants. The effectiveness of testing as suggested by Tran has been found in the classroom, if the review of subjects was done in a testing method rather than in a restudying of the same topic the students attained better results and had better memory retrieval process (Tran, 2015).Although Tran does support the effectiveness of self testing as a way of improving memory recall when studying, he also suggests that there is still questions as to when and how it does and does not in fact facilitate learning (Tran, 2015).Therefore, Tran is in agreement with Ariel and Karpicke that the practice of self testing is effective on students studying for the PSYC101 final exam, as it does enhance the memory recall process, and does produce better results in the results of the

Since attending CCSU, I have evaluated many studying methods. I have used chucking, writing on a white board and making practice exams. However, time after time I noticed no progress in the many studying methods I used. On the other hand, during the fall semester of last year, I have found a two studying methods that works. The first one is writing my class material down while recording myself and the second method I found that works is using a whiteboard to practice key concepts and then writing them down.

In the results provided in the journal, we see that in the free recall testing, the use of the 3R method was more successful across the board than those who used note taking or rereading as their study strategy. The results of the students who used the note-taking strategy and the rereading strategy were not as significant as students using the 3R strategy.

Memory is defined as “an active system that receives information…puts that information into usable form, organizes it as it stores it away and then retrieves the information from storage” according to the Revel definition. (Revel) The way that people learn varies among different personalities but is brought about by experience or practice, long term memories are those that pretty much stay with us permanently. Using this information to help students learn more efficiently and to keep that information with them I found this article on the APA website. According to the article there are three research proven ways to study that increase the comprehension of the students and preserve the information in long term memory. The three

The relationship between effective studying methods and memory is a proven and well developed theory that is built upon the basis and understanding of cognitive evaluation. Robinowitz and Mcauley (2014) explain that memory strategies for studying is what helps ease the process of learning information and retrieving it from long term memory to bring it to working memory. This topic can teach students different methods of obtaining information that will benefit their studying and memory skills for future educational purposes. In their experiment which targeted the effects of ease of processing on the use of perception strategies, researchers Robinowitz and Mcauley (2014) set out to investigate whether or not these strategies would have an effect on a students’ observation and implementation on learning information. The subjects in this experiment consisted of 120 students at the University of Illinois. Robinowitz and Mcauley tested the participants by using two different trials and three different lists per trial, each consisting of 24 words. Ranked on a scale from easy to difficult, the first list was at an easy level and included words that had a connection with one another which made it easier to follow. The subsequent list was ranked at a

Highlighting is one of the worst learning techniques that you can use as a learning strategy but students like to use it. According to Fowler and Barker (1974), highlighting has no effect on their performance in testing. Almost every study will show that highlighting has little to no effect at all for the students studying and doing the highlighting. Students who read and highlight at the same time is comparable to reading and not highlighting anything at all, then later getting tested over the material and testing almost exactly the same. It may also cause mistakes of making connections and drawing conclusions. The purpose of highlighting offers no benefit beyond simply reading the text. Highlighting can get in the way of learning as it draws attention to individual facts instead of looking at the big picture.

College students typically have poor study habits between procrastinating to the night before the big exam and then only rereading over the material. Most of these habits stem from high school were most learning is done inside the classroom with a teacher and little time is needed to spend at home to review. In contrast, college has a largely reduced amount of learning in the classroom setting, and instead requires a lot of studying to be done by the student independently. Study methods such as study and retesting has been proven to be the most beneficial when it comes to retaining the information in memory and further more improving comprehension.

In addition, many researchers had conducted a study and concluded that study habits and academic performance move in the same direction. It only means that when a student performs well, there will be such improvements on their academic performance. Moreover, According to Reed (n.d), good and effective study habits that regularly used by highly effective students includes taking down notes during discussions, and it was very essential in studying because through the notes taken it is easier to study and remember facts that are important in the previous lesson. According to the study entitled “Good study Habits”, Reading textbooks or material, performing advance reading prior to class, listening attentively during classes and working with homework every time should also be observe regularly. In addition, according to (Conway n.d), Good study habits also includes daily practicing skills through answering problems. While as stated in the study entitled, “How to Develop Good Study Habits for College”, prioritizing most important things first before anything else is also a good and effective