New review paper on the effectiveness of learning strategies

Whether it's pushpin, poetry or neither, you can discuss it here.

New review paper on the effectiveness of learning strategies

Postby Arepo on 2013-01-11T17:32:00

I found this interesting skim-reading, and hearteningly simple to put into practice (though that's a slightly recursive claim, since simplicity of putting into practice is one of their criteria).

If you want to only read the advocated techniques, look for the sections headed 'distributed practice', 'practice testing', and possibly 'interleaved practice'.
"These were my only good shoes."
"You ought to have put on an old pair, if you wished to go a-diving," said Professor Graham, who had not studied moral philosophy in vain.
User avatar
Arepo
 
Posts: 1065
Joined: Sun Oct 05, 2008 10:49 am

Re: New review paper on the effectiveness of learning strategies

Postby Pablo Stafforini on 2013-01-15T22:31:00

Here's a condensed version of the summary (!):
In this monograph, we discuss 10 learning techniques in detail and offer recommendations about their relative utility. We selected techniques that were expected to be relatively easy to use and hence could be adopted by many students. Also, some techniques (e.g., highlighting and rereading) were selected because students report relying heavily on them, which makes it especially important to examine how well they work. The techniques include elaborative interrogation, self-explanation, summarization, highlighting (or underlining), the keyword mnemonic, imagery use for text learning, rereading, practice testing, distributed practice, and interleaved practice.

To offer recommendations about the relative utility of these techniques, we evaluated whether their benefits generalize across four categories of variables: learning conditions, student characteristics, materials, and criterion tasks. Learning conditions include aspects of the learning environment in which the technique is implemented, such as whether a student studies alone or with a group. Student characteristics include variables such as age, ability, and level of prior knowledge. Materials vary from simple concepts to mathematical problems to complicated science texts. Criterion tasks include different outcome measures that are relevant to student achievement, such as those tapping memory, problem solving, and comprehension.

To foreshadow our final recommendations, the techniques vary widely with respect to their generalizability and promise for improving student learning. Practice testing and distributed practice received high utility assessments because they benefit learners of different ages and abilities and have been shown to boost students’ performance across many criterion tasks and even in educational contexts. Elaborative interrogation, self-explanation, and interleaved practice received moderate utility assessments. The benefits of these techniques do generalize across some variables, yet despite their promise, they fell short of a high utility assessment because the evidence for their efficacy is limited. For instance, elaborative interrogation and self-explanation have not been adequately evaluated in educational contexts, and the benefits of interleaving have just begun to be systematically explored, so the ultimate effectiveness of these techniques is currently unknown. Nevertheless, the techniques that received moderate-utility ratings show enough promise for us to recommend their use in appropriate situations, which we describe in detail within the review of each technique.

Five techniques received a low utility assessment: summarization, highlighting, the keyword mnemonic, imagery use for text learning, and rereading. These techniques were rated as low utility for numerous reasons. Summarization and imagery use for text learning have been shown to help some students on some criterion tasks, yet the conditions under which these techniques produce benefits are limited, and much research is still needed to fully explore their overall effectiveness. The keyword mnemonic is difficult to implement in some contexts, and it appears to benefit students for a limited number of materials and for short retention intervals. Most students report rereading and highlighting, yet these techniques do not consistently boost students’ performance, so other techniques should be used in their place (e.g., practice testing instead of rereading).
"‘Méchanique Sociale’ may one day take her place along with ‘Mécanique Celeste’, throned each upon the double-sided height of one maximum principle, the supreme pinnacle of moral as of physical science." -- Francis Ysidro Edgeworth
User avatar
Pablo Stafforini
 
Posts: 177
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2009 2:07 am
Location: Oxford


Return to General discussion