The Science of Learning - (or How to Study more Effectively)

Learning and teaching sometimes seems more like an art than a science. But there has actually been quite a lot of research into different aspects of learning that apply across all subject areas, and to all types of learning, whether that is learning to play tennis or studying a new topic in physics. The science of learning is the subject of the book 'Make it stick',  which I highly recommend. It is aimed at the general reader, but presents the findings of cognitive scientists which are relevant to anyone involved in learning and teaching (and isn't that all of us?).

Here I summarise some of the key ideas:

 

Research in cognitive psychology has revealed a great deal about learning and particularly the role of memory in learning. It turns out that memory playsa central role in the ability to do complex tasks. Herewe are not just talking about factual recall (althoughthat is important as I have previously discussed). In fact memory is important for applying knowledge to new situations for analysing information for being creative – in other words,for all tasks involving higher order thinking.

You might think then that better learning is all about better memorising. This is only partially true. Certainly part of the process of learning is about putting ideas and concepts into long term memory, but it is also about being able to recall them. After all it is the quick and efficient recall of information and procedures that make learning really useful.

There three strategies based on scientific evidence suggested in the Make it Stick book, that I want to look at here:

Testing

The first of these is testing. Testing is often a controversial topic because it is associated with high stakes, summative assessment, (grading) and therefore pressure. But testing is a very useful study strategy that students should be encouraged to use on their own or with their peers.

Two processes need to happen for deep robust learning to occur. Firstly we need to take information that is in short term memory and encode and consolidated that into long-term memory. Secondly we need to link that information with a diverse set of cues so that we can recall it in different circumstances. Research shows that testing is much more effective than simply rereading the same material over and over again. This is because testing involves retrieving information and research shows that this is more beneficial for helping to encode material into long term memory.

Testing in this way need not only be about factual information. Recalling that Newton's Third Law is 'for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction' is not very helpful if you don't also recall how and when that can be applied. Making yourself recall ideas about what the concept means, should also be part of testing. The 'testing effect' and how it can be used in practice is described in more detail on the Learning Scientists' blog.  They also have a range of other ideas for making studying more effective, and can be followed on twitter: @AceThatTest

In Practice:

 

Students:Rather than re-reading and underlining, study by covering up the material and asking yourself or getting a friend to ask you questions about it. Then check your answers. Focus on understanding what the concepts and ideas mean, not just recalling facts.

Teachers:Introduce regular low stakes (but also low pressure) tests, or encourage students to study by testing themselves.

Spaced Practice.

Testing can be made even more beneficial by actually making it harder. This sounds counterintuitive but it turns out that the harder you have to work to recall the information the more likely you are to secure that material into long-term memory. Spaced practice involves leaving time between testing sessions. Taking a break and doing something else, or even having a nap (sleep is good for consolidating learning) can all be beneficial. (I discussed how I used some of these practices while studying with a chronic illness here ).

The difficulty with this is that learning in this way feels more effortful and less productive, but in fact the opposite is true and research shows that retesting yourself when just enough time has elapsed for forgetting to set in, leads to better long-term recall.

In Practice:

 

Students: Have regular breaks between studying -

Teachers:Recap material from previous lessons every now and then.

Interleaved and varied practice.

It often tempting to keep practicing one type of problem or skill until you get it and then to move on to something else. This is often called massed practice and cramming for an exam is one form of this.

Interleaved practice and varied practice are similar (see the book for how they are different). Both involve swapping between different subjects or skills. One advantage of interleaving is that it naturally involves spaced practice – simply by interspersing different types of problems you are spacing out your practice of any given problem type.

But it does more than this. In one piece of research two groups of college students were taught how to find the volume of four geometric solids. One group did problems focusing on each type of solid in turn. The other group did problems on all different types of solids in a random order. During practice the first group did much better than those working on the problems in a mixed sequence, but in a test a week later this was reversed. The students who studied using problems classed by type scored only 20% while the students whose practice was interleaved averaged 63%. Once again, while this type of learning feels harder it is more beneficial in the long term and also more beneficial when it comes to taking an exam where questions are in a different order to the order in which they have been studied. Similar research has found that studying in this way helps students to see patterns and to generalise the concepts being taught – this makes learning easier to apply to new contexts, if it seems harder at the time

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In Practice:

 

Students:Regularly swap studying of different subjects and different subject areas.

Teachers:Give students different types of problems in different orders, rather than all one type at once

All of these are study strategies that students can used to improve their own learning. But they are also research findings that teachers should know about, and use when designing their teaching.

Ofcourse there are difficulties with this – much of this research is counterintuitive, and if learning feels harder, and students don't see results immediately they may become disengaged and demotivated. To overcome this it is vital to explain to students both what you are doing and the rationale for doing it- and there is research showing it is effective!

The Science of Learning - (or How to Study more Effectively), by Anna Wood is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.