In defence of traditional study techniques

In Bangladesh, next to prayers, studying is possibly seen as the most sacred act to perform. While Bangladeshi households place an insurmountable amount of importance on education, students are often left alone to figure out how to study best and ace the next exam. The situation has improved quite a bit over the last decade, what with the rising number of ‘studytubers’ on YouTube. 

More often than not, students have come across videos on YouTube or random blogs on the internet where do-gooder, altruistic content creators criticize ‘bad study techniques’ and how to avoid them.

What is interesting, though, is that these lousy study techniques are age-old and have been popular with students for a very long time. These include note-taking, rereading, and highlighting. While most often employed by students while studying, these three techniques also happen to be the most criticized for their apparent uselessness.

This article aims to debunk the newly developed myth of their futility and how, when applied tactically, these methods can actually boost your productivity while studying. 

Note-taking is a staple when it comes to studying, be it during lectures or reviewing study material. Many times, students don’t prefer taking notes at all, preferring instead to learn the information directly from their textbook or borrow someone else’s notes.

According to a paper titled ‘Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology’ by Dunlosky, published in 2013, copying lectures or textbook information verbatim will do very little to reinforce the material in our brain. 

So, what students can do instead is identify the critical points of the material and note them down in their own words. This consolidates their understanding of the information. Although this sounds like a no-brainer, note-taking by self is crucial in priming our brain to internalize information. 

Highlighting and underlining is another popular technique that has been used in the bad books of productivity gurus recently. Its apparent ineffectiveness stems from the notion that highlighting information will engrave it in someone’s long-term memory.

While that is true, highlighting is by no means a useless technique. Instead of viewing it as this magical tool to memorize information, it can instead be used to sort out the essential parts or sort out similar information.

For example, prior to an MCQ-based exam on the history of Bangladesh, a student can use a specific coloured highlighter to highlight all of the critical dates. This technique, when used strategically, can give you a sense of control and confidence in your study process. 

Rereading has recently been proven to be another inefficient technique. Rereading is a passive method which gives us a sense of familiarity with the topic. However, our brain’s function is to retrieve information, not see and recognize it.

Repetition boosts memory, and rereading a couple of times will certainly help students to become more aware of the material. But solely relying on rereading is dangerous.

Instead, it should be coupled with active recall to test how well we can actually coax the information out of our brains when the source material isn’t in front of us. This active engagement in the learning process can make you feel more in control and confident about your knowledge. 

Studying is an energy-consuming activity, and newer information about effective and ineffective study methods keeps coming to the surface every day. While scientific evidence regarding the ineffectiveness of the techniques above cannot be ignored, simply abandoning these techniques isn’t a good idea either. The key lies in refining the application of these techniques so that they yield optimum results. 

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