Self-Study Strategies Student Success

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12 Mar 2017 
Not every learning or teaching strategy is equally effective, especially for long-term 
learning. Here we will explain several learning strategies which have been shown 
effective for long-term learning. Importantly, this is very much different from trying to 
make students do more, which is based on the assumption that when students do more,
they will automatically learn more. This notion might be appealing, but the relationship R
between invested hours and learning gains is substantially lower than what might be
expected. By itself, the amount of study time is rarely a large predictor of academic L
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success in schools and is even negatively related to some measures of academic success,
such as SAT scores (Plant, Ericsson, Hill, & Asberg, 2005). In other words: It is not so
much how much students do, but what they do which is important. R
Retrieval Practice
Tests are often exclusively used to assess what a student has learned and/or to assign a
grade. An intuitive, but incorrect, assumption is that learning only occurs during study
sessions while tests are simply measurements which do not directly affect learning. As
early as over a century ago it was shown that testing has a profound positive effect on
subsequent recall attempts (Abott, 1909). Ever since, this so-called ‘testing effect’ or
‘retrieval practice’ has been studied and further validated. For example, after watching a
video students remember more when they are asked questions about the video content
than when they simply re-watch it (Johnson & Mayer, 2009). Furthermore improves long-
term learning (Karpicke & Roediger, 2008), and outperforms popular study methods such
as note-taking and restudying (Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan, & Willingham, 2013).
When it comes to the type of tests, productive tests such as open-ended questions and
short-answer forms are preferred over multiple-choice tests. The reason is that multiple-
choice tests only require the student to passively recognize the correct answer, while
production tests require active reconstruction of knowledge from memory. This is why W
production tests generally outperform recognition tests, and should be the preferred
format if long-term learning is the main goal (Butler & Roediger III, 2007). Although
tests are typically employed by teachers, students can use self-testing or test each other.
Contrary to popular belief, retrieval practice is not only suitable for learning isolated
facts, but also stimulates deep learning and the transfer or knowledge to other types of
problems (Roediger & Butler, 2011).
Elaborative self-explanation
Elaborative self-explanation is a study strategy which requires students to ask questions

to themselves about the content and their knowledge thereof. It is bene cial for learning
in general as well as transfer (i.e., the application of knowledge to new problems) (Rittle-
Johnson, 2006) (Dunlosky et al., 2013). A straightforward method of using this study
strategy is to present students with a prompt to come up with ’why’ questions about the
content, which is bene cial for learning (Davey & McBride, 1986). Using questions to
guide elaborative self-explanation and stimulating recall from memory also triggers
retrieval practice, further enhancing the bene ts of this study strategy. When doing this,
it is important to focus not only on questions about facts, but to especially focus on
critical thinking questions aimed at getting a deep understanding of the material.
Examples of such critical thinking questions are: ‘what would happen if …?’, ‘explain how
… can be used to …?’ and ‘what are the plausible explanations of …?’ (Maudsley &
Strivens, 2000; McMillan, 1987).
Distributed Practice
Distributed practice consists of using a schedule that spreads out repeated study
activities over a longer period of time (Dunlosky et al., 2013). Importantly, this is not
related to ’how long you should study’ but to ’how you should schedule your studying’.
Typically, many students prefer to mass their study time, for example in the hours before
an exam. Instead of massing study time, it is much more effective to distribute the same
amount of time over a longer period (Cepeda et al., 2009). An important advantage of
distributed practice is that it does not require you to do more, but to learn better by
merely re-arranging study time. Alternatively, students can reach the same goal with less
invested time and effort. Note that it is not so much the distribution of any study activity,
but primarily the distribution of repeated study of the same content. As such, students
should be advised not to restudy a video or text multiple times in a row, but to distribute
their study time.
Interleaved Practice
While distributed practice is centered around how and when you should learn from the
same materials, interleaved practice is concerned with how you should schedule different
sets of learning materials. Instead of presenting similar study problems in blocks (e.g.,
AABBCC), long-term learning is improved when they interleaved (e.g., ACBCAB) (Taylor &
Rohrer, 2010). This is especially relevant for problem- or case-based courses, such as
when different math problems or medical cases are to be understood. This study strategy
can both be used by students to schedule their learning, as well as by teachers to
promote better learning through a more effective sequencing of problem types. Note that
interleaving task types is more effective than only interleaving different representations
of the same task type (Rau, Aleven, & Rummel, 2013).
References
Abott, E. E. (1909). On the analysis of the factor of recall in the learning process. The
Psychological Review: Monograph Supplements, 11 (1), 159.
Bangert-Drowns, R. L., Kulik, C.-L. C., Kulik, J. A., & Morgan, M. (1991). The instructional
effect of feedback in test-like events. Review of educational research, 61 (2), 213–238.
Butler, A. C., & Roediger III, H. L. (2007). Testing improves long-term retention in a
simulated classroom setting. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 19 (4-5), 514–
527.
Cepeda, N. J., Coburn, N., Rohrer, D., Wixted, J. T., Mozer, M. C., & Pashler, H. (2009).
Optimizing distributed practice: Theoretical analysis and practical implications.
Experimental psychology, 56 (4), 236–246.
Davey, B., & McBride, S. (1986). Generating self-questions after reading: A

comprehension assist for elementary students. The Journal of Educational Research, 80
(1), 43–46.
Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013).
Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques promising directions
from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest,
14 (1), 4–58.
Johnson, C. I., & Mayer, R. E. (2009). A testing effect with multimedia learning. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 101 (3), 621.
Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning.
science, 319 (5865), 966–968.
Konstan, J. A., Walker, J., Brooks, D. C., Brown, K., & Ekstrand, M. D. (2015). Teaching
recommender systems at large scale: Evaluation and lessons learned from a hybrid mooc.
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 22 (2), 10.
Maudsley, G., & Strivens, J. (2000). Promoting professional knowledge, experiential

learning and critical thinking for medical students. Medical education, 34(7), 535-544.
McMillan, J. H. (1987). Enhancing college students' critical thinking: A review of studies.

Research in Higher Education, 26(1), 3-29.
Plant, E. A., Ericsson, K. A., Hill, L., & Asberg, K. (2005). Why study time does not predict
grade point average across college students: Implications of deliberate practice for
academic performance. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 30 (1), 96–116.
Rau, M. A., Aleven, V., & Rummel, N. (2013). Interleaved practice in multi-dimensional
learning tasks: Which dimension should we interleave? Learning and Instruction, 23 , 98–
114.
Rittle-Johnson, B. (2006). Promoting transfer: Effects of self-explanation and direct

instruction. Child development, 77 (1), 1–15.
Roediger, H. L., & Butler, A. C. (2011). The critical role of retrieval practice in long-term
retention. Trends in cognitive sciences, 15 (1), 20–27.
Taylor, K., & Rohrer, D. (2010). The effects of interleaved practice. Applied Cognitive
Psychology, 24 (6), 837–848.
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Leiden•Delft•Erasmus Centre for Education and Learning About Con

 Research ndings News and developments Conferences Get involved

Elaborative self-explanation is a study strategy which requires students to ask questions

Davey, B., & McBride, S. (1986). Generating self-questions after reading: A

Maudsley, G., & Strivens, J. (2000). Promoting professional knowledge, experiential

McMillan, J. H. (1987). Enhancing college students' critical thinking: A review of studies.

Rittle-Johnson, B. (2006). Promoting transfer: Effects of self-explanation and direct

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