Study Skills
Encyclopedia
Study skills or study strategies are approaches applied to learning. They are generally critical to success in school, are considered essential for acquiring good grades, and are useful for learning throughout one's life.
There are an array of study skills, which may tackle the process of organising and taking in new information, retaining information, or dealing with assessments. They include mnemonic
s, which aid the retention of lists of information, effective reading and concentration techniques, as well as efficient notetaking
.
While often left up to the student and their support network, study skills are increasingly taught at High School
and University
level. A number of books and websites are available, from works on specific techniques such as Tony Buzan
's books on mind-mapping
, to general guides to successful study such as those by Stella Cottrell
.
More broadly, any skill which boosts a person's ability to study and pass exams can be termed a study skill, and this could include time management
and motivational techniques.
Study Skills are discrete techniques that can be learned, usually in a short time, and applied to all or most fields of study. They must therefore be distinguished from strategies that are specific to a particular field of study e.g. music or technology, and from abilities inherent in the student, such as aspects of intelligence or learning style.
In the 1950s and 1960s, college instructors in the fields of psychology and the study of education used research, theory, and experience with their own students in writing manuals. Marvin Cohn based the advice for parents in his 1979 book Helping Your Teen-Age Student on his experience as a researcher and head of a university reading clinic that tutored teenagers and young adults. In 1986, when Dr. Gary Gruber’s Essential Guide to Test Taking for Kids was first published, the author had written 22 books on taking standardized tests. A work in two volumes, one for upper elementary grades and the other for middle school, the Guide has methods for taking tests and schoolwork.
Methods based on communication
The weakness with rote learning is that it implies a passive reading or listening style. Educators such as John Dewey
have argued that students need to learn critical thinking
- questioning and weighing up evidence as they learn. This can be done during lectures or when reading books.
One method used to focus on key information when studying from books is the PQRST method. This method prioritizes the information in a way that relates directly to how they will be asked to use that information in an exam. PQRST is an acronym for Preview, Question, Read, Summary, Test.
There are a variety of studies from different colleges nation-wide that show peer-communication can help increase better study habits tremendously. One study shows that an average of 73% score increase was recorded by those who were enrolled in the classes surveyed.
Methods based on cues e.g. flashcard
Flash Cards are visual cues on cards. These have numerous uses in teaching and learning, but can be used for revision. Students often make their own flash cards, or more detailed index cards - cards designed for filing, often A5 size, on which short summaries are written. Being discrete and separate, they have the advantage of allowing students to re-order them, pick a selection to read over, or choose randomly to for self-testing.
Methods based on condensing information, summarising
Summary methods vary depending on the topic, but most involve condensing the large amount of information from a course or book into shorter notes. Often these notes are then condensed further into key facts.
Organized summaries:
Spider diagrams: Using spider diagrams or mind map
s can be an effective way of linking concepts together. They can be useful for planning essays and essay responses in exams. These tools can give a visual summary of a topic that preserves its logical structure, with lines used to show how different parts link together.
Methods based on visual imagery
Some learners are thought to have a visual learning style, and will benefit greatly from taking information from their studies which is often heavily verbal, and using visual techniques to help encode and retain it in memory.
Some memory techniques make use of visual memory, for example the method of loci
, a system of visualising key information in real physical locations e.g. around a room.
Diagrams are often underrated tools. They can be used to bring all the information together and provide practice reorganizing what has been learned in order to produce something practical and useful. They can also aid the recall of information learned very quickly, particularly if the student made the diagram while studying the information. Pictures can then be transferred to flash cards
that are very effective last minute revision tools rather than rereading any written material.
Methods based on acronyms and mnemonic
A mnemonic is a method of organizing and memorizing information. Some use a simple phrase or fact as a trigger for a longer list of information. For example, the points of the compass
can be recalled in the correct order with the phrase "Never Eat Shredded Wheat". Starting with North, the first letter of each word relates to a compass point in clockwise order round a compass.
Methods based on time management
Often, improvements to the effectiveness of study may be achieved through changes to things unrelated to the study material itself, such as time-management, boosting motivation
and avoiding procrastination
, and in improvements to sleep
and diet
.
Time management in study sessions aims to ensure that activities that achieve the greatest benefit are given the greatest focus. A traffic lights system is a simple way of identifying the importance of information, highlighting or underlining information in colours:
This reminds students to start with the things which will provide the quickest benefit, while 'red' topics are only dealt with if time allows. The concept is similar to the ABC analysis
, commonly used by workers to help prioritise. Also, some websites (such as FlashNotes
) can be used for additional study materials and may help improve time management and increase motivation.
There are an array of study skills, which may tackle the process of organising and taking in new information, retaining information, or dealing with assessments. They include mnemonic
Mnemonic
A mnemonic , or mnemonic device, is any learning technique that aids memory. To improve long term memory, mnemonic systems are used to make memorization easier. Commonly encountered mnemonics are often verbal, such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember something,...
s, which aid the retention of lists of information, effective reading and concentration techniques, as well as efficient notetaking
Notetaking
Notetaking is the practice of recording information captured from a transient source, such as an oral discussion at a meeting, or a lecture. Notes of a meeting are usually called minutes. The format of the initial record may often be informal and/or unstructured. One common format for such notes is...
.
While often left up to the student and their support network, study skills are increasingly taught at High School
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
and University
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
level. A number of books and websites are available, from works on specific techniques such as Tony Buzan
Tony Buzan
Anthony "Tony" Peter Buzan is an author and educational consultant. He is a proponent of the techniques of Mind Mapping and mental literacy. He claims to have worked with "corporate entities and businesses all over the world; academics; Olympic athletes; children of all ages; governments; and...
's books on mind-mapping
Mind map
A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Especially in British English, the terms spidergram and spidergraph are more common, but they can cause confusion with the term spider diagram used in mathematics...
, to general guides to successful study such as those by Stella Cottrell
Stella Cottrell
Stella Cottrell is the Director for Lifelong Learning at the University of Leeds, UK. Prior to her current position, she was Director for Lifelong Learning at the University of Luton and before that worked for ten years in educational development at the University of East London...
.
More broadly, any skill which boosts a person's ability to study and pass exams can be termed a study skill, and this could include time management
Time management
Time management is the act or process of exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase efficiency or productivity. Time management may be aided by a range of skills, tools, and techniques used to manage time when accomplishing specific...
and motivational techniques.
Study Skills are discrete techniques that can be learned, usually in a short time, and applied to all or most fields of study. They must therefore be distinguished from strategies that are specific to a particular field of study e.g. music or technology, and from abilities inherent in the student, such as aspects of intelligence or learning style.
Historical context
The term study skills is used for general approaches to learning, skills for specific courses of study. There are many theoretical works on the subject, and a vast number of popular books and websites. Manuals for students have been published since the 1940s .In the 1950s and 1960s, college instructors in the fields of psychology and the study of education used research, theory, and experience with their own students in writing manuals. Marvin Cohn based the advice for parents in his 1979 book Helping Your Teen-Age Student on his experience as a researcher and head of a university reading clinic that tutored teenagers and young adults. In 1986, when Dr. Gary Gruber’s Essential Guide to Test Taking for Kids was first published, the author had written 22 books on taking standardized tests. A work in two volumes, one for upper elementary grades and the other for middle school, the Guide has methods for taking tests and schoolwork.
Methods based on memorization such as rehearsal and rote learning
One of the most basic approaches to learning any information is simply to repeat it by rote. Typically this will include reading over notes or a textbook, and re-writing notes. Methods based on communicationCommunicationCommunication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
skills e.g. reading and listening
The weakness with rote learning is that it implies a passive reading or listening style. Educators such as John DeweyJohn Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
have argued that students need to learn critical thinking
Critical thinking
Critical thinking is the process or method of thinking that questions assumptions. It is a way of deciding whether a claim is true, false, or sometimes true and sometimes false, or partly true and partly false. The origins of critical thinking can be traced in Western thought to the Socratic...
- questioning and weighing up evidence as they learn. This can be done during lectures or when reading books.
- Preview: the student looks at the topic to be learned by glancing over the major headings or the points in the syllabus.
- Question: then questions to be answered once the topic has been thoroughly studied are formulated.
- Read: reference material related to the topic is read through, and the information that best relates to the questions is chosen.
- Summary: the student summarizes the topic, bringing his or her own ways of summarizing information into the process, including written notes, spider diagrams, flow diagrams, labeled diagrams, mnemonics, or even voice recordings.
- Test: then the student answers the questions created in the question step as fully as possible, avoiding adding questions that might distract or change the subject.
There are a variety of studies from different colleges nation-wide that show peer-communication can help increase better study habits tremendously. One study shows that an average of 73% score increase was recorded by those who were enrolled in the classes surveyed.
Methods based on cues e.g. flashcardFlashcardA flashcard or flash card is a set of cards bearing information, as words or numbers, on either or both sides, used in classroom drills or in private study. One writes a question on a card and an answer overleaf. Flashcards can bear vocabulary, historical dates, formulas or any subject matter that...
training
Flash Cards are visual cues on cards. These have numerous uses in teaching and learning, but can be used for revision. Students often make their own flash cards, or more detailed index cards - cards designed for filing, often A5 size, on which short summaries are written. Being discrete and separate, they have the advantage of allowing students to re-order them, pick a selection to read over, or choose randomly to for self-testing. Methods based on condensing information, summarisingSummaryA summary, synopsis, or recap is a shorter version of the original. Such a simplification highlights the major points from the much longer subject, such as a text, speech, film, or event...
and the use of keywordsKeywordsKeywords are the words that are used to reveal the internal structure of an author's reasoning. While they are used primarily for rhetoric, they are also used in a strictly grammatical sense for structural composition, reasoning, and comprehension...
Summary methods vary depending on the topic, but most involve condensing the large amount of information from a course or book into shorter notes. Often these notes are then condensed further into key facts.Organized summaries:
Spider diagrams: Using spider diagrams or mind map
Mind map
A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Especially in British English, the terms spidergram and spidergraph are more common, but they can cause confusion with the term spider diagram used in mathematics...
s can be an effective way of linking concepts together. They can be useful for planning essays and essay responses in exams. These tools can give a visual summary of a topic that preserves its logical structure, with lines used to show how different parts link together.
Methods based on visual imageryMental imageA mental image is an experience that, on most occasions, significantly resembles the experience of perceiving some object, event, or scene, but occurs when the relevant object, event, or scene is not actually present to the senses...
Some learners are thought to have a visual learning style, and will benefit greatly from taking information from their studies which is often heavily verbal, and using visual techniques to help encode and retain it in memory.Some memory techniques make use of visual memory, for example the method of loci
Method of loci
The method of loci , also called the memory palace, is a mnemonic device introduced in ancient Roman rhetorical treatises . It relies on memorized spatial relationships to establish, order and recollect memorial content...
, a system of visualising key information in real physical locations e.g. around a room.
Diagrams are often underrated tools. They can be used to bring all the information together and provide practice reorganizing what has been learned in order to produce something practical and useful. They can also aid the recall of information learned very quickly, particularly if the student made the diagram while studying the information. Pictures can then be transferred to flash cards
Flashcard
A flashcard or flash card is a set of cards bearing information, as words or numbers, on either or both sides, used in classroom drills or in private study. One writes a question on a card and an answer overleaf. Flashcards can bear vocabulary, historical dates, formulas or any subject matter that...
that are very effective last minute revision tools rather than rereading any written material.
Methods based on acronyms and mnemonicMnemonicA mnemonic , or mnemonic device, is any learning technique that aids memory. To improve long term memory, mnemonic systems are used to make memorization easier. Commonly encountered mnemonics are often verbal, such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember something,...
s
A mnemonic is a method of organizing and memorizing information. Some use a simple phrase or fact as a trigger for a longer list of information. For example, the points of the compassCompass
A compass is a navigational instrument that shows directions in a frame of reference that is stationary relative to the surface of the earth. The frame of reference defines the four cardinal directions – north, south, east, and west. Intermediate directions are also defined...
can be recalled in the correct order with the phrase "Never Eat Shredded Wheat". Starting with North, the first letter of each word relates to a compass point in clockwise order round a compass.
Methods based on exam strategies
The Black-Red-Green method (developed through the Royal Literary Fund) helps the student to ensure that every aspect of the question posed has been considered, both in exams and essays . The student underlines relevant parts of the question using three separate colors (or some equivalent). BLAck denotes 'BLAtant instructions', i.e. something that clearly must be done; a directive or obvious instruction. REd is a REference Point or REquired input of some kind, usually to do with definitions, terms, cited authors, theory, etc. (either explicitly referred to or strongly implied). GREen denotes GREmlins, which are subtle signals one might easily miss, or a ‘GREEN Light’ that gives a hint on how to proceed, or where to place the emphasis in answers http://www.rlf.org.uk/fellowshipscheme/writing/documents/answerquestionb.pdf. Methods based on time managementTime managementTime management is the act or process of exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase efficiency or productivity. Time management may be aided by a range of skills, tools, and techniques used to manage time when accomplishing specific...
, organization and lifestyle changes
Often, improvements to the effectiveness of study may be achieved through changes to things unrelated to the study material itself, such as time-management, boosting motivationMotivation
Motivation is the driving force by which humans achieve their goals. Motivation is said to be intrinsic or extrinsic. The term is generally used for humans but it can also be used to describe the causes for animal behavior as well. This article refers to human motivation...
and avoiding procrastination
Procrastination
In psychology, procrastination refers to the act of replacing high-priority actions with tasks of low-priority, and thus putting off important tasks to a later time...
, and in improvements to sleep
Sleep
Sleep is a naturally recurring state characterized by reduced or absent consciousness, relatively suspended sensory activity, and inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles. It is distinguished from quiet wakefulness by a decreased ability to react to stimuli, and is more easily reversible than...
and diet
Diet (nutrition)
In nutrition, diet is the sum of food consumed by a person or other organism. Dietary habits are the habitual decisions an individual or culture makes when choosing what foods to eat. With the word diet, it is often implied the use of specific intake of nutrition for health or weight-management...
.
Time management in study sessions aims to ensure that activities that achieve the greatest benefit are given the greatest focus. A traffic lights system is a simple way of identifying the importance of information, highlighting or underlining information in colours:
- Green: topics to be studied first; important and also simple
- Amber: topics to be studied next; important but time-consuming
- Red: lowest priority; complex and not vital.
This reminds students to start with the things which will provide the quickest benefit, while 'red' topics are only dealt with if time allows. The concept is similar to the ABC analysis
ABC analysis
The ABC analysis is a business term used to define an inventory categorization technique often used in materials management. It is also known as Selective Inventory Control...
, commonly used by workers to help prioritise. Also, some websites (such as FlashNotes
FlashNotes
FlashNotes.com is a website that allows college students to buy and sell class notes, study guides, book summaries, lecture notes, and other items to help students study and/or earn money throughout their college years.- History :...
) can be used for additional study materials and may help improve time management and increase motivation.
See also
- HomeworkHomeworkHomework, or homework assignment, refers to tasks assigned to students by their teachers to be completed outside of class. Common homework assignments may include a quantity or period of reading to be performed, writing or typing to be completed, problems to be solved, a school project to be built...
- LearningLearningLearning is acquiring new or modifying existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals and some machines. Progress over time tends to follow learning curves.Human learning...
- Reading dayReading dayA reading day is a day set aside by a college, university or other school for study for final exams. It is scheduled after all the regular class lectures and before final exams...
- Study guideStudy guideStudy guides can be broad based to facilitate learning in a number of areas, or be resources that foster comprehension of literature, research topics, history, and other subjects....
- Study softwareStudy softwareStudying in an educational context refers to the process of gaining mastery of a certain area of information.Study software then is any program which allows students to improve the time they spend thinking about, learning and studying that information....
- SQ3RSQ3RSQ3R or SQRRR is a reading comprehension method named for its five steps: survey, question, read, recite, and review. The method was introduced by Francis Pleasant Robinson in his 1946 book Effective Study.....
- Super Camp
- Video study guideVideo study guideA "video study guide" offers the content of traditional printed educational supplements in video format.Such "video-centric" educational materials are, increasingly, taking hold in the classroom, both in response to cultural preferences and research....
External links
- Think You Know How To Study? Think Again - audio report by NPRNPRNPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...