Studying and Memory : Part 1

Over the last few posts, I have been discussing how to plan out your study time. Time management is a key to exam success. I also discussed that the exams at U of Leicester are comprehensive and that students, unless instructed otherwise specifically by the module tutor, should review all of their module materials for their upcoming exams. My posting in January of this year discussed how to read your course materials to get the most out of them - most specifically how to use Bloom's Taxonomy to ask important questions about textual materials as you learn.

I have mentioned that keeping pace with the course readings while you first study the course is a good idea. There are two reasons for this. One, you can direct questions on course materials to the module tutor via Blackboard while the course is actually taking place. Second, the more times you review course materials the better chance you have that you will actually retain these materials for the exam. The two-for-one rule, that is studying two hours for every hour of classroom time is harder for distance students to follow. It is also difficult for students to use distributed practice. Distributed practice is when, rather than studying for three hours in one block of time, a student reviews this same material over three nights for one hour each night. Research on education has shown that students who do this, rather than study in long blocks of time, retain more information.

It is tempting, especially when there is no formal classroom time, to leave the bigger job of reading and reviewing texts until exam time. It is also tempting to do this studying in large chunks of time, rather than reviewing it over the course of a number of days. This almost guarantees that a student will not remember the information they need for the exam. Remembering vital information is a problem that plagues many students working on their exams. If students, at the very least, have already reviewed their text once and asked important questions as they arose on Blackboard, they can feel more comfortable with the materials in the text before they even begin the process of studying.

However, I'd like to look at ways, over the next few postings, that students can retain more information when it comes to exam day. I'd like to leave you with a thought from Schonwetter & Walker regarding exams:

"Studying is defined as the active processing of information that involves attending, acquiring, organizing and integrating information into memory."

Schonwetter & Walker (2005) . Success Secrets of University Students. Prentice-Hall: Toronto, 156.