Many people do not realize how effective their study method is, or they don’t even really have a good study method. Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III,  and Mark A. McDaniel wrote a book called to Make it Stick. That book greatly helped me to write this article. This article should help people realize what good study methods look like. 

The first fact that was very surprising was that repetitive practice is not very helpful. Cramming for exams makes you feel like you learned but the next day you’ll have forgotten everything. Studies show that practice that is spaced out helps you remember your information longer. This type of spaced out practice requires more effort than repetition practice, but will actually learn the information rather than thinking you learned it. 

The second fact was that underlining and highlighting text like lecture notes and slides only feels like learning. People have researched this and they figured out that after one or two reviews of a text, self-quizzing is more helpful by a big margin. This type of practice is named retrieval practice. Make it Stick says, “Quizzing yourself on the main ideas and meanings behind the terms helps you to focus on the central precepts rather than on peripheral material.” meaning that this type of practice helps you learn the ideas that you need to learn. 

Using these types of practices is proven to help students learn the material and do better on tests. While your institution may tell you to practice, practice, practice and jam the information quickly into your head, using these strategies actually helps you learn the information much more effectively.