The Most Common Pitfalls While Studying

It has been almost two months since students have returned to school, and whether that return came with resignation or excitement for the new school year, everyone has more or less gotten back into the swing of things. However, it is at this exact time that students will struggle to juggle all the different aspects of their life. Trying to keep on top of daily homework while balancing extracurriculars like sports and clubs is difficult enough, and doing all of that while parents are badgering them about helping out with chores or spending time with family is nigh impossible. 

At this rate, it’s no wonder actually getting 8 hours of sleep seems like more of a fantasy than finishing the assignment in front of you. 

Studying, especially while you have bad study habits only adds to the workload, so perhaps these common mistakes during studying will tell you what to avoid. 

1. Studying is not a marathon (don’t make it one)

It can often seem that the best way to study for upcoming tests is to find a spot, get comfortable, and spend the next 4 hours studying without stopping. After all, the spot is quiet, you can focus, and it can seem like breaks are simply a waste of time at that point. Unfortunately, that is exactly where the problem lies. While it may seem like an efficient strategy at the moment, your brain simply is not built to integrate information that way. The Pomodoro strategy recommends taking a short break every 25 minutes to allow yourself to not overload on the information, or risk the chance of forgetting it by the next day. The strategy holds off any exhaustion from studying while making your mind feel refreshed and ready to learn.

2. Passive learning is not the best way

While studying passively, whether it’s reading notes or listening to lectures, is not necessarily a bad thing, it is certainly not the best way to study for a test the day after. Passive learning creates “an illusion of knowing”. Students think that by re-reading knowledge that is familiar to them, they believe they know it. Regrettably, this type of learning does little to store information long-term. In a test setting, people will struggle to remember the information as well. Strategies that incorporate more active engagement, such as answering practice problems or re-teaching the information to someone else are a much better way to get the information stuck in your mind.

Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.

― Benjamin Franklin

3. Studying chronologically (when you don’t need to)

It’s a rather upsetting sight when someone can spend hours studying for a lesson, re-writing notes, and making diagrams, but still manage to score low. One of the most common reasons this happens is because students will study chronologically, instead of by priority. You can sit down and read through your notes in order, and on top of this being a passive learning strategy, it puts you at risk of running out of time without truly learning the information that is most critical. Especially for classes such as math or languages, studying by priority is much more important as the workload only increases in difficulty.

4. Having distractions nearby

While this one might seem obvious, a shocking number of students struggle to actually make an isolated space free of distractions. While simply having your phone on the table might not seem like a big deal, even one notification can make a difference with how well you understand the material. In a recent study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, 118 students upper-level college students we studied by researchers, and the students with laptops and cell phones open for non-classroom purposes scored half a letter grade lower on exams. While not the most surprising pitfall, it is certainly one of the most common.

5. Going in without a plan

This final pitfall causes the greatest downfall of them all because this is the one that affects all the others. For students who try to start “studying” without a clear plan of their priorities, or what they need to focus on, chances are they will end up getting distracted or simply spinning their wheels. Worse yet, multitasking will not help you either. The human brain is surprisingly bad at multitasking because while we may think we are focusing on two topics simultaneously, we are actually switching back and forth between the topics failing to comprehend either properly. Eventually, you will end up going into the exam far less prepared than you could have been, so try to avoid going in blind.

In the end, how you study is up to you.  Nonetheless, small changes like planning your study session or taking breaks can go a huge way in reducing the time and increasing the efficiency of studying. There is still a while left to go, but we can begin with a running start.

Sources:

[1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]