Effective Study Technique
Psychologists at Purdue University in Indiana and have demonstrated, by comparing the results of different research techniques.
If you want to help a student learn, not tell it locks in her room to study and make sketches. Better ask him what you have been taught or what you read. Is recommended by psychologists at Purdue University in Indiana (USA) that have compared the results of different techniques of study.
In the investigation, eighty-school students received a science lesson. Students were divided into groups that study used different techniques to retain the lesson. One group read the lesson once. Another re-read several times. A third made schemes. And the latter produced a text that explained the lesson in their own way.
In the first three groups, the researchers said, the goal was to store information in memory. In the latter group, was to restore previously stored information.
A week later, they did a test. According to the results presented Thursday by the journal Science, the students who had explained the lesson in their own way were those who scored better. These results show that return information is not only reproducing what is known. Rather, the lesson is to rebuild in a way that promotes learning.
In a second experiment, another 120 students received two science lessons. One tried to withhold making an outline with the text of the lesson ahead. The second, explaining his way. The researchers found that 84% learned best when explaining the lesson in its way, 11% did better make sketches, and 5% got the same score with both techniques.
Paradoxically, the vast majority of students felt well learn the lesson plans that studying or explaining. This may be because, to explain, they felt insecure when they realize they did not know. Instead. To study or make sketches, they felt confident in reviewing things they had read before.
The authors of the research, and Janell Karpicke Jeffrey Blunt, argue that making schemes remains a useful study technique. But they argue that the return of information, as to do an exam or when explaining what they learned, even more so. In their research, have not analyzed the effectiveness of schemes without any text to front, which combine the performance of conceptualization schemes requiring the exercise of reconstructing the information required restitution.
Previous studies have found that when students take tests, learn better than when they do, even if they study the same and even if the answers are wrong on the test. These studies indicate that the tests are not a waste of time to study, but have an active role in learning. But new research goes further to compare different strategies for the first time learning. “Our challenge now, said in a statement Karpicke-is to find the most effective and practical strategies to use the return of information as an educational activity.
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