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Study Habits: The Key to Effective Learning and Academic Success

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Published: Feb 7, 2024

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Study habits for effective learning, study habits for memory retention, study habits for exam preparation, study habits for online learning.

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27 Good Study Habits of Straight-A Students

Study habits refer to the consistent practice and approach to study, on a regular basis, to enhance academic performance.

The good thing about a habit is that once you do it on a regular basis, it becomes easy. So, your job is to get into this habit early. Once you’re into the habit, university becomes easy (well, easier ).

Good study habits that I recommend include getting into the routine of heading to the library (or a similar study space) to study without distractions, chunking your studies by subject, and using spaced repetition for things that require rote memorization .

I also recommend studying with friends – such as by testing one another – whenever possible.

The integration of efficient study habits enhances academic performance and motivation to study . By developing effective study strategies adjusted to your personal learning style, you improve concentration and retention of information – and concentration, more than time spent studying, is found to be a key factor for success (Nonis & Hudson, 2010).

Good Study Habits

1. Time Management Time management refers to being able to efficiently allocate your time so you don’t run out of time, and so you have enough time to allocate to all important tasks. As a basis, you could initiate a dedicated study schedule, specifying the time slots for each subject. For instance, you might want to allot your mornings for theory-heavy subjects like Anatomy, and save the afternoons for practice-oriented subjects like Clinical Skills. Don’t forget to also block time for regular study breaks and social events. This is crucial to prevent burnout and maintain longevity – university is a marathon, not a sprint.

Read Also: 7 Things to do in your First Week of University

2. Using Active Reading Strategies This is the process of engaging with the material by asking questions and drawing connections. Instead of passively reading your texts, you can participate more actively by summarizing the information in your own words, teaching it to someone else, quizzing yourself, or creating visual aids like diagrams and mind maps. As Issa et al. (2012) found, reading relevant information daily is an effective study habit for improving grades.

3. Setting Realistic Goals This strategy involves laying out achievable objectives for each study session or topic. Setting goals not only keeps you focused, but also helps gauge your progress. For example, instead of aiming to read an entire biology textbook in two days, you might target mastering one chapter per day. I recommend setting both short-term study goals and long-term study goals using the SMART Goals method .

4. Prioritization Successful students often prioritize tasks based on their deadlines and degree of importance. You might follow the Eisenhower Box method: divide your tasks into four categories, namely, important and urgent, important but not urgent, not important but urgent, and not important and not urgent. For instance, an upcoming exam translates into an important and urgent task, hence it would be first on your list.

5. Spaced Repetition This strategy involves studying information over incremental intervals instead of cramming it in one sitting. You might review your notes on the day you learn something, then again in a couple of days, then after a week, and so forth. There are even apps like the Anki flashcards app that have a built-in spaced repetition algorithm that can space how often ideas are presented to you.

6. Creating a Suitable Environment Each individual’s ideal study environment may differ based on personal preferences . Some people need complete silence, while others work better with some background noise. If you like silence, the quite section of a library is a good place to start – I recommend making it a habit to go to the library at your university as often as possible. Conversely, if you feel background noise helps you to concentrate, consider studying at a cafe. But the key is to ensure your environment is right for you. As Ogbodo (2010, p. 229) argues: “Where to study is as important as what to study and how to go about studying.”

7. Taking Breaks Integrating regular short breaks into your study pattern can boost your productivity and mental agility because it decreases distractions during focused study time. And this is important. As Walck-Shannon, Rowell and Frey (2021) found, “students reported being distracted about 20% of their study time, and distraction while studying negatively predicted exam performance.” So, let’s avoid that – by splitting our time between strong focus, then rest. Typically, the Pomodoro technique is a popular method for this, where you study for 25 minutes, then take a 5-minute break. After four such cycles, you take a longer break of 15-20 minutes. During your breaks, you can engage in some light activity such as stretching or walking to invigorate yourself.

8. Maintaining Physical Health Eating well, getting regular exercise, and ensuring enough sleep are often overlooked aspects of efficient studying. Research shows that a balanced diet, physical activity, and proper sleep improve cognitive functions , including memory and concentration. You may want to establish a regular sleep schedule, incorporate a balanced diet, and schedule regular exercise sessions each week into your routine.

9. Using Technology Wisely Technology offers a range of tools that can streamline your study process. For instance, you can use apps for time management (e.g., Rescue Time), note-taking (e.g., Evernote), or spaced repetition (e.g., Anki). While these apps can be beneficial, remember to keep checks on screens’ disruptive nature and the habit of digital distraction. As practice, try turning off your phone’s notifications when you study, or set ‘Do Not Disturb’ intervals.

10. Review and Revise Sessions Regular review of study materials aids in long-term retention of information. You can allocate specific time slots each week to revisit old notes, attempt self-test papers or engage in group discussions. For instance, you might dedicate your Sunday mornings to revising everything you’ve covered during the preceding week.

11. Active Writing Transcribing information demands active engagement, thereby reinforcing your understanding and memory of the subject. You might opt to rewrite complex concepts in your own words or diagrammatically represent intricate processes. For example, instead of merely reading about the human circulatory system, consider drawing it out with brief annotations.

12. Seeking Help When Needed Understanding when to seek help is an underrated study habit. If you find yourself struggling with a subject, don’t hesitate to approach your professors, peers, or study groups for clarification. You might also seek online resources such as academic forums or educational websites. Remember, it’s better to clarify doubts initially than to have misconceptions hamper your overall learning.

13. Mindfulness and Focus Mindfulness, or present-moment awareness, can help enhance your comprehension and retention during studying. You could practice mindfulness by removing distractions, concentrating on the task at hand, and making a conscious effort to absorb the material.

14. Integrating Study with Real-Life Scenarios Applying the theoretical knowledge learned during study sessions to real-life instances can facilitate a deeper understanding. You might relate basic principles of economics to household budgeting or chemistry to cooking. This practice can help convert abstract concepts into tangible examples.

15. Regular Self-Assessment Implementing regular exams or quizzes to assess your understanding and memory can be a direct way to monitor progress. You can either use ready-made quizzes available online or design a short assessment yourself. As you answer, mark out the areas you struggled with for further review. This method will help you know where you stand in your preparation and what areas need extra effort.

16. Employing Mnemonics This involves using techniques to retain and retrieve information. The method could be as simple as creating an acronym or conjuring up a relevant mental image. For example, in recalling the taxonomical rank in biology – Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species – you might use the well-known mnemonic phrase: “King Phillip Came Over For Good Soup.” Examples of additional mnemonic techniques include the method of loci and memory linking .

17. Incorporating Understandable Examples Since abstract concepts can be confusing, associating them with relateable analogies can help you grasp the idea. This technique depends heavily on your creativity and could be as simple as linking a literary theme to a popular movie plot. Ensuring your examples make sense to you is vital.

18. Varying Study Methods It is beneficial to avoid monotony and experiment with multiple learning techniques. This can include oscillating between solitary studying and group study sessions, or alternating between text-based learning and audio-visual aids. For instance, following a hefty reading session, you might want to watch a related documentary or podcast on the topic. Switching up strategies not only prevents burnout but also caters to different facets of your learning style.

19. Note-Taking Strategy Effective note-taking is a skill that helps in better understanding and remembrance of knowledge. You should decide a note-taking strategy which could be outlining, mind mapping, or the Cornell method, and stick to it. For example, you might use the Cornell Method, which divides the paper into notes, cues, and a summary section for enhancing retention and review.

20. Regularity and Consistency Consistency is the cornerstone of strong study habits. Establishing a regular routine that allocates specific periods for study each day leads to better academic performance. For instance, studying for two hours per day consistently is more effective than cramming for fourteen hours once a week.

21. Engage All Senses Engaging multiple senses aids in strengthening your memory of the subject matter. This could involve reading aloud, rewriting notes, creating visual aids, or even using software to convert text to speech. The goal is to consume the information through as many sensory channels as possible to maximize retention. For example, if you’re studying foreign vocabulary, you could listen to the pronunciation, read the definition, write the word several times, and visualize an image related to it.

22. Reflective Learning Reflective learning involves regularly taking a few moments to contemplate what you’ve learned. This process ensures you understand the main concepts and helps you evaluate how effectively the learning material has been understood. For instance, after reading a section on World History, take a moment to think about what questions have been answered and what new questions have arisen in your mind about the topic.

23. Preparing for the Next Class Reviewing the material that will be covered in the next class helps make the class more productive and understandable. By having prior knowledge of the topic, you can better participate in class discussions and raise insightful queries. For example, if tomorrow’s Physics class covers Electromagnetic Waves, you might want to read the corresponding chapter tonight.

24. Constructive Procrastination While complete avoidance of procrastination is the goal, sometimes it’s unavoidable. Constructive procrastination involves doing another task that also needs to be done when you feel like procrastinating. If you find yourself unable to study Civil Law, consider switching to another pending task, such as completing your Mathematics assignment. This way, you remain productive while giving in to the urge to procrastinate.

25. Visualization Techniques Visualization involves picturing the information in your mind, which can significantly improve memory and recall. For instance, when studying Anatomy, envisioning the body parts, systems, and processes can enhance your understanding. If you’d like to explore this strategy more, read my article on the visual peg-word system for memorization .

26. Listen to Music Without Lyrics Listening to music while studying is a controversial topic. Some people think it helps them to achieve a flow state, while most research suggests that “ media multitasking ” is a distraction whether we realize it or not (Xu, Wang, & Woods, 2019). Generally, I recommend that if you do like that background nose, try to listen to music without lyrics, like lo-fi playlists from YouTube, which act as background noise and could potentially prevent your mind from wandering.

27. Study with Friends Thalluri (2016) found that “study buddy support groups” significantly support studying. Friends can keep each other accountable and help motivate one another. And, according to social learning theory , working in groups helps us to reinforce knowledge. For example, if you’re talking about the course content with friends, you’ll hear their unique perspectives, which you can critically compare to your own, which augments, supports, positively alters, and strengthens your own perspectives.

Study habits act as the building blocks of your academic journey. Efficient study habits not only ensure better academic performance but also help in gaining lifelong skills like time management, goal-setting, and self-discipline. By adopting effective study habits, you modulate your academic journey to a more favorable and fruitful path.

If you want to dive deeper into getting good study habits, I’d recommend James Clear’s Atomic Habits book – it’s an amazing book for learning to get more productive and optimize your time as a student.

Issa, A.O., Aliyu, M.B., Akangbe, R.B., and Adedeji, A.F. (2012). Reading interest and habits of the federal polytechnic students. International Journal of Learning & Development, 2 (1): 470-486.

Nonis, S. A., & Hudson, G. I. (2010). Performance of college students: Impact of study time and study habits.  Journal of education for Business ,  85 (4), 229-238.

Ogbodo, R. O. (2010). Effective Study Habits in Educational Sector: Counselling Implications.  Edo Journal of Counselling ,  3 (2), 230-242.

Thalluri, J. (2016). Who benefits most from peer support group?–First year student success for Pathology students.  Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences ,  228 , 39-44.

Walck-Shannon, E. M., Rowell, S. F., & Frey, R. F. (2021). To what extent do study habits relate to performance?.  CBE—Life Sciences Education ,  20 (1). doi: https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.20-05-0091

Xu, S., Wang, Z., & Woods, K. (2019). Multitasking and dual motivational systems: A dynamic longitudinal study.  Human Communication Research ,  45 (4), 371-394. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqz009

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

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Essay on Study Habits

Students are often asked to write an essay on Study Habits in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Study Habits

What are study habits.

Study habits are the ways that you choose to study. They can include when you study, where you study, and how you organize your study materials. Good study habits help you learn better and faster.

Importance of Planning

Planning your study time is very important. Decide what you will study and when. This helps you use your time wisely and not waste it. A plan makes studying less stressful.

Creating a Good Study Environment

Your study place should be quiet and have good light. It should have all the things you need so you don’t have to stop and look for them.

Staying Focused

When you study, pay full attention. If you get distracted easily, try to find ways to keep your mind on your work. Taking short breaks can also help keep your mind fresh.

Reviewing Your Work

After studying, review what you learned. This helps you remember it better. You can also teach what you learned to someone else. Teaching is a great way to make sure you really understand.

250 Words Essay on Study Habits

Study habits are the ways that you choose to learn and remember information. They include when, where, and how you sit down to study. Good study habits can help you do well in school, while bad ones can make learning much harder.

Importance of a Quiet Place

Finding a quiet place is key to good studying. This means a spot where distractions are few, so you can focus on your work. It could be a corner of your room, a library, or even a quiet cafe. The important thing is that it’s a place where you can concentrate.

Creating a Study Schedule

Making a schedule helps you manage your time. Decide on what days and times you will study and for how long. Stick to this plan as closely as you can. This helps your brain get into a routine, making studying a regular part of your day.

Take Short Breaks

It’s important not to study for too long at a stretch. After about 45 minutes to an hour, take a short break. This can be a quick walk, some stretches, or just resting your eyes. Breaks help your brain absorb information better and keep you from getting too tired.

Good study habits are about finding the right place, making a plan, and not forgetting to take breaks. By following these simple steps, you can make learning easier and more effective.

500 Words Essay on Study Habits

What are study habits.

Study habits are the methods and techniques that a person uses to learn and retain information. Effective study habits help students retain information, improve their grades, and develop critical thinking skills.

Why are Study Habits Important?

Effective study habits can help students succeed in school. They can help students to:

• Remember information more easily
• Understand concepts more deeply
• Improve their grades
• Develop critical thinking skills
• Learn how to learn

How to Improve Study Habits

There are many things that students can do to improve their study habits. Such as:

• Set a regular study schedule and stick to it
• Choose a quiet and comfortable place to study
• Break down large tasks into smaller, more manageable ones
• Take breaks to avoid burnout
• Use effective study techniques, such as spaced repetition and active recall
• Get enough sleep
• Eat healthy foods
• Exercise regularly

Active Learning

Active learning is a study technique that involves actively engaging with the material. This can be done by:

• Taking notes
• Creating flashcards
• Summarizing the material
• Teaching the material to someone else
• Participating in class discussions

Spaced Repetition

Spaced repetition is a study technique that involves reviewing the material at spaced intervals. This helps to move the information from short-term memory to long-term memory.

Spaced repetition can be done using flashcards, online tools, or simply by setting aside time to review the material at regular intervals.

Get Help When You Need It

If you are struggling with your studies, don’t be afraid to ask for help. There are many resources available to help students, such as:

• Study groups
• Online resources
• Parents and teachers

Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it. There are many people who are willing to help you succeed.

Effective study habits are essential for student success. By developing good study habits, students can improve their grades, develop critical thinking skills, and learn how to learn. With hard work and dedication, students can achieve their academic goals.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Students And Social Work
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Successful Study Habits for College Students Research Paper

Introduction, argument for conducting research and explicit hypotheses, discussion of eight articles, interaction discussion of the results, limitations of the study, suggestions for future studies.

The amount of time that is spent in learning does not influence performance outcomes of learners. Learning about effective study method can be one of the best ways to achieve one’s objectives (Pelham & Blanton, 2012). It is advisable that one should learn to manage, organize and prioritize activities in order to improve on study habits. It is expected that students should dedicate particular time and place for studying. Learning styles are necessary for high-quality performance outcomes (Pelham & Blanton, 2012).

Individual student determines the method of learning, and the choice could be driven by intrapersonal and interpersonal factors (Credé & Kuncel, 2008). Some students prefer studying alone while others prefer working in groups. While both methods of learning are vital, it is critical for learners to participate in class work during lectures because this will reinforce the individual efforts (Credé & Kuncel, 2008).

Learning in a cool environment where noise is minimal promotes understanding in students. The process of learning is reinforced by successful study habits and other factors, such as availability of learning environment and the readiness of the learner.

Many institutions in many countries across the world focus on increasing performance outcomes. Equipping learners with necessary knowledge, which entails teaching them how to prepare themselves adequately and effective study methods are among the important roles instructors are entrusted with (Credé & Kuncel, 2008). Many students in colleges and other institutions of learning have encountered challenges with regard to studying, especially when tests are about to begin.

Some learners study without objectives, while others do it without noting down any main idea. As a result, they end up failing in their exams. Many researchers have argued that there exist theoretical and scientific proof that performance outcomes are influenced by repetitive multi-functions of capabilities and motivation, which are mediated by study habits (Credé & Kuncel, 2008). It is evident that a learner with ability who is not motivated might not perform as expected.

The scholars argue that students with who are highly motivated and with high potentials produce excellent results (Credé & Kuncel, 2008). Despite the fact that the environment and students’ ability are key determinants of academic results, there is a need for students to develop and utilize effective study habits. In this view, it is necessary to conduct research to find out whether there are effects of successful study habits on academic performance outcomes. The study focuses on justifying the following hypotheses:

• Learning styles do not have a significant difference in determining study habits and influence on academic performance.
• Outside activities do not have a major difference in determining study habits as an influence on academic performance

In a study conducted by Vermeulen and Schmidt (2008) to investigate the effects of learners’ involvement and effectiveness of instruction on academic outcomes, the researchers found that learning environment is crucial to increased academic outcomes. In addition, the study revealed that learners’ engagement in extra-curriculum activities influenced them positively.

The researchers contended that the environment in which students study and their participation in other activities are critical determinants of their success in career and employment (Vermeulen & Schmidt, 2008). They argued that other activities are important in the development of skills and leadership roles.

However, Nonis and Hudson (2010) oppose this study and argue that study habits are critical to moderating the relationship between study time and learners’ academic outcomes positively. In their analysis of business students, they indicated that study habits had positive effects on performance results (Nonis & Hudson, 2010). In another study that they conducted, the findings showed negative results.

Many students participate in different activities beside school, which have influence on academic outcomes Nonis & Hudson (2010). Scholars, such as Hunt (2005) have indicated that there is a positive relationship between extracurricular activities and students’ performance outcomes.

Despite the fact that many learners participate in extracurricular activities because they are provided with additional rewards, it is evident that other roles help them to promote self-esteem that results in increased performance outcomes (Hunt, 2005). Lau, Hsu, Acosta and Hsu (2014) conducted a research to investigate whether there is a relationship between activities outside the school that learners engage in and performance outcomes conducted.

The researchers concluded that having many roles was effective due to the benefits and costs associated with them. Some students demonstrated positive effects, while others did not show any effect (Lau et al., 2014). However, it is notable that some responsibilities do not have benefits, demoralizing learners.

Shiah, Huang, Chang, Chang and Yeh (2013) state that students who engage in other activities in order to evaluate their communication, leadership, imagination, and self- promotion skills, which are useful for employment benefit after they complete their studies. Creativity skills were acquired from music clubs and helped learners after school.

Moreover, they argued that participation in other activities besides school assist students in developing qualities that are consistent with academic values, increasing their outcomes (Shiah et al., 2013). However, it has been found that many students who use their time with friends doing nothing have been impacted negatively (Dumais, 2008). In addition, they develop cultures that do not conform to those of adults because they usually concentrate on gaining popularity rather than improving academic performance outcomes (Dumais, 2008).

In most cases, students who use their unstructured time watching television, movies, and playing with friends demonstrated negative academic results. This is the case, especially in subjects that show negative transfer of learning, such as maths (Dumais, 2008). In most cases, learners ignore their past poor performance and start procrastinating.

As a result, they perform poorly in academics. It is critical to underscore that many of them withdraw from colleges due to procrastination (Dumais, 2008). Sometimes, they begin to revise for tests a day before its period, and others read the same day they are doing the test, making them study throughout the night.

In a survey conducted by Pychyl, Morin, and Salmon (2001), results indicated that many of students start preparing eight days before the test period. It has been found that most learners prefer handling urgent matters and do not revise for examinations until their period is near (Pychyl et al., 2001).

The fact that they start preparing late does not mean others outperforme them. In fact, their performance was better than those who prepared in advance (Pychyl et al. 2001). However, according to Pychyl and colleagues (2001), although prior preparation is significant they argue that factors, such as a learning environment, the learning process, the learner, motivation, and socioeconomic are critical determinants of performance outcomes.

In a study conducted by Lovely (2012) to find out cohort and differences in gender involvement in extracurricular activities, she concluded that there were a few differences with regard to activities and scores. The score the researcher used was on a math test. The scholar revealed that the extracurricular activities were important in achieving maths and met college expectations (Lovely, 2012).

In addition, Benfer and Shanahan (2013) conducted a research on how to recognize different learning styles and create a strategy that supports skill development using millennial generation. The researchers explored law students’ characteristics, including their self-concept (Benfer & Shanahan, 2013). In this study, the scholars demonstrated that, if well supported and reinforced, millennial generation can produce excellent legal professionals who are competent.

The study used a survey method to collect data from first and second year psychology and sociology college students, whereby they were labelled with confidential numbers. A sample of 205 participants was selected from the population using convenient sampling. Questionnaires were administered by their teachers who requested them to participate voluntarily. In addition, the study focused on learning styles, instruments and techniques that were used.

Information in relation to activities outside the school, when they study, when they finish learning, and what time they preferred to learn in and/or outside class was inquired. With regard to ethical issues, data were collected with the consent of learners.

They were informed of the reasons for filling in the questionnaires and that their participation was voluntary. Confidentiality was observed, and no information was released to any individual. Moreover, no participant was coerced, and they were not rewarded because it was voluntary. The instructor kept the results for seven years.

Increased performance outcomes are dependent on various factors, but not successful study habits only. The study demonstrated that there are no effects of efficient study methods on education productivity.

However, Nonis and Hudson (2010) disputed this fact in one of their studies where they argued that study habits mediate between the amounts of time spent and academic outcomes. The study also found that outside school activities have a positive impact on educational results and career development, but do not have any adverse effect on study habits (Nonis & Hudson, 2010).

This study is in line with Benfer and Shanahan, (2013) who argued that instructors’ roles are essential in improving learning outcomes. Critical factors that researchers identified as having a lot of impacts are the learning environment, the learning process, the readiness of learners, socioeconomic status, and motivation.

Vermeulen and Schmidt (2008) support these findings and argue that the environment is crucial for increased education productivity. The socioeconomic factors influence the availability of learning resources, and how learners would be exposed in relation to the use of the modern methods of learning (Vermeulen & Schmidt, 2008).

Regarding the learning environment, one that is cool, free from noise and distractions, such insecurity is conducive for learning. Learners should be ready and willing to learn and should feel obliged to learn. It is also correct that students waste their time watching televisions, which affect their performance outcomes negatively, especially in mathematics. In addition, many students tend to procrastinate, leading to inadequate preparation for tests.

Lovely (2012) states that some learners withdraw from college in order to attend to more urgent matters. It is critical to point out that sometimes they find it difficult to catch up with others, leading to a decline in their performance outcomes. Some students do not report back to colleges, even after they completed attending to urgent matters (Lovely, 2012).

This is also the case in this study’s findings. The first and second hypotheses are confirmed by the fact that there is a positive relationship between outside activities and performance outcomes, and extra-curriculum activities have no impact on study habits. In fact, the researchers advocate extracurricular activities due to the fact that they are crucial in the development of values and leadership skills.

According to Hunt (2005), those who participate in extracurricular activities enhance communication and social skills. Arguably, those with leadership experience are considered in career opportunities. It is suggested by Benfer and Shanahan (2013) that the learners’ characteristics should be considered before teaching them.

Thus, instructors are advised to consider individual differences in learning before they start teaching. This would be done by preparing materials and using appropriate methods of teaching. Teaching aids that are suitable for learners with special needs should be developed.

The role played by instructors should be emphasized because they are involved in identifying and understanding students with individual differences (Benfer & Shanahan, 2013). In addition, they are entrusted with the responsibilities of equipping learners with the best study skills that are essential for improving their performance.

First, the study did not use a bigger sample population. Second, the study did not use a variety of data collection methods.

It is important to point out that this study should form the basis for further research, which should focus on improving the results.

The studies should utilize bigger sample population in order to get adequate information with regard to successful study habits.

They should use many data collection methods in order to compare the results and examine if there is the effect of study habits on academic performance outcomes.

Benfer, E. A., & Shanahan, C. F. (2013). Educating the Invincibles: Strategies for Teaching the Millennial Generation in Law School. Clinical L. Rev. , 20 , 1-267.

Credé, M., & Kuncel, N. R. (2008). Study habits, skills, and attitudes: The third pillar supporting collegiate academic performance. Perspectives on Psychological Science , 3 (6), 425-453.

Dumais, S. A. (2008). Cohort and gender differences in extracurricular participation: The relationship between activities, math achievement, and college expectations. Sociological Spectrum , 29 (1), 72-100.

Hunt, H. D. (2005). The effect of extracurricular activities in the educational process: influence on academic outcomes?. Sociological Spectrum , 25 (4), 417-445.

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How To Improve Study Habits For Students: 15 Strategies From The Science Of Behaviour Change

by William Wadsworth | Jan 29, 2021

by William Wadsworth

The Cambridge-educated memory psychologist & study coach on a mission to help YOU ace your exams . Helping half a million students in 175+ countries every year to study smarter, not harder. Supercharge your studies today with our time-saving, grade-boosting “genius” study tips sheet .

How do you change when change is hard? How can students like you or me improve their study habits, and actually make the new habits STICK?

The secret is knowing WHAT you want to change and HOW to change it.

Prefer to listen? This article also available as a podcast episode:

If you’re reading this, you might already have some ideas about WHAT you want to improve about your study habits:

• Maybe you want to work harder.
• Adopt some productivity hacks to get more done in less time.
• Get your assignments completed well ahead of time.
• Or switch to smarter ways of learning information.

Perhaps it’s all of the above, and more!

(Still looking for ideas on WHAT to improve about your study habits? Then check out my previous article on the 7 habits of highly effective students for a great overview.)

But honestly, deciding what you want to change is the easy bit.

This article focuses on what happens next.

How to make the changes stick .

I think we all know that it’s one thing to set good intentions. It’s quite another to actually see them through consistently for the long term.

So let’s find out how to improve your study habits – for good.

Let’s make this your best year yet!

Free: Exam Success Cheat Sheet

My Top 6 Strategies To Study Smarter and Ace Your Exams

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Part 1: Meeting your inner caveman, and why s/he can make it so hard to act on your motivations

I’m going to start by answering a very simple question:

Why is it that you do certain things and don’t do certain other things?

What drives your behaviour?

Why do you find yourself doing so many things you know aren’t in your best long-term interests? Things like helping yourself to an extra slice of cake, or procrastinating on TikTok rather than getting on with your essay?

The psychology of human behaviour is very complex. But it’s very important to understand, because only once we understand why we behave in the way we do, can we truly become masters of our behaviour.

I’m going to cut through the complexity for you today, and boil it all down to 3 very simple factors. Together, these underpin just about anything you decide to do. The 3 factors can work together, but often, they are in conflict, pulling you in different directions.

The 3 factors that drive your actions each day are:

Factor 1: your automatic habits

Think of all the things you do on autopilot every day.

You might have checking habits when you leave the house (“phone, wallet, keys…”), or hygiene habits (you brush your teeth, right?).

It’s entirely possible to train new habits. For example, in the past 5 years, I’ve trained myself to wipe down the screen afterwards with a squeegee thing after every shower. I do it every day. If I’m showering when travelling and there’s no squeegee, I feel a fleeting moment of discomfort when I can’t perform my post-shower ritual.

When you train an animal, what you’re really doing is building a habit. You’re training a dog to respond to the word “sit” by sitting down.

Habits are very primal, very raw things.

Their impact can be pretty powerful, but they’re usually slow to build and change.

Factor 2: your motivations

What exactly is it that you want to do?

How do you think you should be allocating your time?

What tasks will produce results that are in alignment with your goals and values?

This is anything from your long-term destination in life, right down to your plan for any given day. If you want to be an A-grade student and graduate at the top of your class, that motivation might spur you on to put in some extra work over the holidays or vacation. (Even if no one is asking you for that work!)

You can of course choose your motivations. The trouble is, what you intend to do doesn’t always translate to what you actually do .

Why? Time to meet Factor 3:

Factor 3: the instincts of your inner caveman

As we all well know, your motivations don’t always translate into your actions.

You’ve been meaning to finish an assignment before the night of the deadline for once… but it’s never quite worked out.

You’ve been meaning to get out for some exercise every day… but somehow life has got in the way.

So what’s the problem?

Why is it so hard to actually see through on good intentions to improve your study habits?

It mainly comes down to a set of instincts that are constantly guiding your actions and behaviours. It’s possible to trace most of these instincts traced back to explanations from evolutionary history. They are the patterns of thought that evolved to keep you safe in a very different world to the one you face today.

I collectively refer to this set of instincts as your “inner caveman”.

There are 3 really important instincts to know about:

A. Your inner caveman is lazy…

…S/he likes you to conserve energy.

To take the low-effort path rather than doing something that’s harder work.

For your hunter-gatherer ancestors, the supply of food (energy) was limited, so it made sense to conserve calories whenever possible. If there was a choice between taking an energetic action or not, your inner caveman will tend to prefer not.

B. Your inner caveman hates taking risks…

… S/he wants to keep you safe from harm.

In 10,000BC the dangers were very real and very physical. Your ancestors didn’t want to get eaten by a predator, or trampled by the animal they were trying to catch for lunch!

In the modern day, the dangers are much more theoretical. Now, we’re afraid of failing a harder course, or of putting in extra effort on a project only to be rewarded with an average mark.

This also ties into social risks: your inner caveman loves to be accepted, to stick with the tribe, because life as a lone caveman is a darn sight harder than if you can share the burden of surviving. It’s good to have other tribe members around who can watch over you through the night. So the possibility of any form of social embarrassment is often a particularly painful risk to contemplate.

C. Your inner caveman loves quick thrills

Your brain evolved a reward system that responds very strongly to certain desirable things in the environment.

The rush you get from eating sugar is a great example – it’s a fast hit of energy to fuel a burst of activity, like a hunt. Sugar used to be hard to come by, so our ancestor’s craving was only rarely indulged. Modern humans find it only too easy to indulge that craving, of course!

Many modern-day pleasures take advantage of our love of a quick thrill.

That ranges from the sugary foods we most crave, through to the addictive video games on your console or smartphone.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking these pleasures in moderation. But if you allow your inner caveman to get too obsessed with them, you end up with rotten teeth, and getting nothing done all day because you’re too busy gaming.

Taming the beast

Your inner caveman is starting to sound like a bit of a wild beast, no?

But the good news is that, like any wild beast, your inner caveman can be tamed.

You just need to learn how to turn their strengths to your advantage, like a judo master.

I’m going to walk you through a set of 15 strategies to help you master your inner caveman.

As you’ll discover, many of these strategies work beautifully together to create a complete system to bring about the improvements in your study habits that you want to make.

Ready? Let’s do this!

Your inner caveman is lazy: here’s how to persuade him/her to get up and GO!

I’m going to start with strategies designed to counteract your inner caveman’s laziness.

1.      Be clear on exactly what new study habits you’re adopting

Your inner caveman is looking for any excuse for an easy life.

If there’s a change you’ve decided to make in your study habits, don’t give him / her any reasons not to get with the plan.

That starts with being absolutely clear on what the plan is . Be really specific about what actions to take, and exactly how are you’re going to go about them. Go beyond the obvious here.

Let’s say your new habit is to go running every morning: what do you need to do to make that happen?

• What will you be wearing?
• What time are you going to set the alarm?
• And what route are you going to follow?

If you expect to just wake up on Day 1 and figure all that out on the fly, you’re setting yourself up for failure. So set yourself up for success, by planning it all out in advance.

It’s exactly the same with adopting new habits in your studies. Think through all you’ll need in order to make your improved study routine happen. When will you do the work, what materials will you need, and so forth.

And by the way, if you need some advice on the specifics of what good study technique looks like, I would highly encourage you to download my exam success cheat sheet:

If you’re doing flashcards, which is one of the recommendations in my study cheat sheet (see above), you’ll need some sort of cards to work with. You might also want to dig out your exam syllabus, and have a copy printed out for you by your desk.

Do you have a way to stay hydrated – if you’re working in a library for example, do you have a water bottle you can take in?

If you’re not in a library, are there any textbooks you’ll need to go and borrow or buy before you start work?

You get the idea.

Anything you need to make your plan work, get it all ready in advance.

By the way, this process of gathering your stuff is a great way to ease yourself into starting a new study routine . None of this takes a huge amount of effort, so it’s a nice way to feel you’ve taken the first step, without really having to summon up too much willpower.

2.      Make it easy, make it obvious

Next, I want you to remove any friction to following through on your plan for improved study habits.

Try leaving out all your study stuff neat and ready to go the night before.

Put your books out on the desk, open to the right page.

You’d be shocked at how that little action helps you slip straight into work mode. I have a friend who wants to spend more time learning the guitar. The guitar is out of its case, propped on a stand by the sofa – making it super-easy to just pick it up and start playing instantly.

On the other hand, hide away anything that might distract you.

I’ve talked before about turning your phone off and putting it out of sight when you’re working. Same if you have a games console in the house – you don’t need to throw it out, but unplug it and put it away in a cupboard. Distractions become substantially less tempting when they’re out of sight, and when there’s just a little extra effort needed to find them.

Put chocolate out on a table in my house, and it will disappear very quickly. But put it away in a cupboard, and it lasts substantially longer. Out of sight really is out of mind when it comes to things you don’t want to be distracted by.

So put the distractions out of sight, keep your study stuff in sight.

Though a small caveat that you might not necessarily want your study materials out and at the top of your mind 24/7. You might need to compartmentalize, and have some times of the day or week when you’re not engaged in your studies, so you can allow your mind chance to rest.

3.      Start small: the “just five minutes” trick

If you’re still feeling resistance to starting your new improved study habits, try starting small.

There’s two variants of this: the “just 5 minutes” trick, and the Virginia Valian approach.

Try the “just 5 minutes” trick to overcome light to moderate resistance, and bouts of laziness or low willpower.

It’s simple: set a timer for 5 minutes of work, and give yourself permission to stop when the timer goes off.

Chances are, you won’t feel like stopping once the 5 minutes is up! Once you’ve started, it’s much easier to carry on, and you might get a whole study session in after all. Often the idea of doing an hour of studying is far more off-putting to your lazy inner caveman than the reality once you get started.

So get started, then watch as the resistance melts away.

Same with starting on a run. If don’t want to do a whole run, then try running for just 5 minutes. Or even getting changed into your exercise clothes and standing outside. Once you’re there, you’re much more likely to want to go ahead and do some more.

4.      The Virginia Valian Approach

Now, if you’ve got a much more deep-seated aversion to working, you may need something more drastic. That’s the Virginia Valian approach, which I’ve named after the famous academic who inspired this approach.

Virginia was a very high-ability student, but had, in her words, a pretty serious work problem. You can read her full story here .

In summary, Virginia had got literally no work done for weeks on her assignment. She was in a bad way: she knew she needed to start making progress, but was facing titanic resistance to the idea of working.

So she asked herself: what daily target would I feel comfortable about setting?

For her, even just a couple of hours a day seemed completely daunting and off-putting. No way.

What about half an hour?

Better, but still feeling a lot of resistance to that idea.

OK – so what about 15 minutes?

That feels OK. Let’s try that.

And she did. For weeks on end – just 15 minutes per day. It may not sound like much, but it’s amazing what you can accomplish with a quality 15-minute session day after day after day.

Eventually, she felt her stamina improving, and was able to stretch that 15 minutes to 20 minutes. To half an hour. And eventually, to several hours every day.

So if you’re stuck in a complete rut with improving your study habits, start by asking yourself the question:

What small amount of action every day could I set myself that feels comfortable and completely do-able?

Start with that, and build from there.

Your inner caveman hates taking risks: take back control and improve your study habits

With the help of these first strategies, you should already be starting to overcome the laziness of your inner caveman.

The next set of strategies will help you get around your inner caveman’s preference for avoiding risks.

5.      Set process goals, and focus your energy on those

Your inner caveman hates the idea of setting yourself up for a goal that you’ll probably fail. No-one likes to feel a failure (even if the only person that knows about it is you!).

I recommend setting an overall goal for your studies – the outcome you want from your course – and writing it down. Have it as a North star to make sure you’re always steering in the right direction. But day-in-day-out, there’s no need to be constantly looking up at the star. You’ve got more immediate concerns.

I’d much prefer you to focus your daily energies on a clear process goal : a target for what actions you’re going to take on a regular basis.

To explain the difference between a process goal and an outcome goal:

A process goal would be to work for 2 hours, or run for 30 minutes.

An outcome goal is to finish Chapter 2, or write 5000 words, or run a personal best on the race track.

In other words, a process goal is about the journey, the process, the outcome goal is about the destination.

And the nice thing about a process goal is they’re completely predictable, and completely within your control.

The outcome goal involves aiming for something that’s only partially in your control. Sometimes you can finish a chapter in 2 hours, sometimes it might take more or less time depending on how challenging the material is, and how familiar you are with it.

On the other hand, if your goal is about the process rather than the outcome, it’s entirely in your control. Every single day becomes a day in which you can succeed against your target, and feel great about yourself.

6.      Make sure your goals are realistic

Process goals are great, but the target you choose needs to be realistic, otherwise, you’ll have a hard time improving your study habits.

I recommend being conservative in what you think you’ll be able to achieve at first, and scaling up over time as you’re able to. It doesn’t get much more conservative than the Virginia Valian approach – 15 minutes a day! – so don’t be afraid to set very modest goals to start with.

I’d far rather you set a small daily goal and achieved it every single day this week than tried to stretch yourself too far, only to fail, feel demoralised and demotivated.

Be realistic in your target setting. Put all your energies into focusing on what you can control – trusting the process – and trust that the outcome will follow from that.

7.      Change your environment: work on fitting in

Your inner caveman is a deeply social creature.

S/he craves being accepted by the tribe, and hates the idea of being cast out and isolated. Any kind of social embarrassment is an abhorrence.

(We’re all a little different in this respect of course. Some crave social acceptance more than others – but it’s true to some extent for most people.)

So instead of fighting this fact of life, let’s work with it to improve your study habits.

If you want to boost your motivation to study hard , find yourself a tribe that works hard.

Look for an environment where “fitting in” means getting your head down and getting some studying done.

An easy place to find such a tribe is at a library, or perhaps a silent study room if your school or college has one. You’re basically looking for a room that’s got other people working studiously in it. You don’t even need to know the other people for your herd instincts to kick in.

Once you find such an environment, you’ll likely perceive some peer pressure to look as if you’re working.

Your inner caveman will WANT to work in order to fit in, and avoid social embarrassment. Perfect!

8.      Find an accountability partner: improve your study habits together

Working among a herd isn’t right for everyone – for some, the pressure will be too great, tipping over into anxiety.

A slight variant on this strategy is to see if you can find a friend who’s on the same journey as you.

Hold each other accountable.

Agree to debrief every day, or every week, on how you’re doing with those new habits.

Your need to impress will kick into overdrive. You’ll want to have positive news to report, and will want to avoid embarrassment by admitting to your friend that you’re failing.

This principle is a very powerful one, and underlies the huge effectiveness of many group classes to change behaviours. Just think of effectiveness as support groups to help people quit smoking or lose weight.

9.      Look out for limiting beliefs

I’ve come across many inner cavemen in my 1:1 work with students as a school and exam success coach .

One of the peskiest things about these cavemen is that they’re great storytellers. Often their stories are neither accurate nor helpful. As modern humans, we’re subjected to a constant babble from our inner caveman of stories about what we can and can’t do.

What we are and are not capable of.

To achieve success, we need to get past these limiting beliefs.

Let’s take one of the most common limiting beliefs: that we’re not good enough to achieve something. In order words, that our level of talent in a given area is fixed, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

“I’m not good at math(s).”

Or “I’m not smart enough to get good grades.”

Here’s the truth: your levels of ability in a given field are not fixed forever.

You can improve.

There’s a growing body of evidence that your brain can literally grow and change at a neurological level as you learn. The very wiring in your brain levels up as you practice and gain skill in an area.

So, train yourself to relish the feeling of finding things challenging, of feeling your ability stretched. Because that feeling is the feeling of your brain growing bigger and stronger and fitter! Exactly the same way that finding a workout challenging is the feeling of your body growing stronger and fitter.

As I tell my coaching students , “feel the burn when you learn”!

If you want to find out more about how 1:1 exam success coaching with me could save you time and get you bigger results this year, hit the button below:

10. Build on the bright spots

You might not have heard of Dr Timothy Wilson , but he’s one of the world’s leading authorities on behaviour change.

His book Redirect is one of my all-time top recommendations. In it, Tim talks about how the stories you tell yourself have a powerful impact on your behaviour, and how to go about changing those stories.

We’ve already met some examples of those “stories” when we talked about limiting beliefs just now. (I’m bad at math(s), I’m not smart enough, etc.)

I particularly like his “bright spots” technique.

This means looking for examples of places or circumstances where you’re not quite as bad as normal!

If you struggle in math(s), say, is there a particular topic you actually did OK with?

Was there a teacher you started to flourish with?

Was there a time when you showed a little more promise?

Starting by nurturing these bright spots as proof that better things are possible, that you are capable of more. Take courage and confidence from the very existence of these bright spots.

Then go a step further.

Ask yourself what it was about these examples that made them different and better. If there were particular things you did that time that helped, could you do more of that in future?

See if you can spread the light from the bright spots wider and wider through your work.

Your inner caveman loves a quick thrill: here’s how to use that to your advantage to improve your study habits

So, let’s take stock.

By now, we’ve got over your inner caveman’s laziness, we’ve convinced him or her that change isn’t so risky after all.

Now all we need to do is solve the problem of your caveman wanting its quick thrills.

My final strategies allow you to do just that.

11. Improve your study habits by promising your inner caveman a reward

Can you “manufacture” a quick thrill to reward your inner caveman for good behaviour?

Much as you might toss your pooch a doggy treat when it’s obeyed a command to “sit” in training, you give your inner caveman a tangible reward to say “good job” when you follow through on your intentions.

Food is an easy example. My high school Biology teacher used to polish off a whole packet of chocolate digestive biscuits on the one night of the year he blitz-marked all of the practice exam scripts.

(Don’t try this at home!)

For you, it might be rewarding yourself for a good day’s studying with an episode of your favourite show on Netflix.

12. Threaten your caveman with a “punishment”

The flip side of craving quick thrills is a strong aversion to suffering punishments. That’s just psychologists’ term for any outcome which is unpleasant in some way, such as losing money.

How can we use “punishments” to keep that inner caveman in line and improve study habits?

There are plenty of apps that will help: Beeminder is one good example. The app is totally free to use as long as you’re on track, and it’ll send you nice “well done” messages along the way. But if you go off the rails… you pay!

I’ve even known a PhD candidate set up a contract with a friend. For every month he fails to stick to his word count target, he’ll owe $200. Ouch.

You could even combine this strategy with your inner caveman’s fear of social embarrassment. Make the “punishment” a social embarrassment if you fail to hit your goals, for example, announcing to your friends on your social media account of choice if you miss your writing target one day. Hopefully, that will have a bit of a positive feedback loop, as your, hopefully, supportive friendship group encourages you to get back on track the next day.

A word of caution on rewards and punishments

Whether you’re promising a good outcome or threatening a bad one, beware making the incentive too strong.

If you do, there’s a risk that you start to erode any intrinsic interest you have in your new study habit. Your brain thinks that the only reason you’re studying is to get the reward or avoid the punishment, and so you actually become less interested over time in your studies.

So if you’re going to use punishments and rewards, try to use the lightest possible prize or threat that still gets you to take the action you want.

My advice would be to use punishments and rewards as a kick to get you started, but switch to something else to stay the course over the long term.

13.  Temptation bundling to improve your study habits

You could also try “ temptation bundling ”. This is where you bundle something you don’t especially want to do together with something you really, really want to do.

Don’t want to go to the gym? Addicted to that new show on Netflix? Perfect: from now on, the only place you’re allowed to watch that show is when you’re in the gym .

Resisting adopting a new study habit? Wild about that new shake shack that just opened? Perfect: from now on, the only time you’re allowed a milkshake is as you’re sitting down to work with your new study technique.

Combine the thing you’re resisting with the thing you really want to do.

You might need the gym idea if you have too many of those milkshakes!

But you get the idea 🙂

14. Making long-term goals into short-term actions

If you heard my recent podcast episode Eating The Frog with productivity legend Brian Tracy , you’ll have heard him talk about the buzz you get from completing a task.

As Brian explained, it’s easy to feel daunted by the idea of working on our biggest tasks – that giant project or assignment or dissertation. We know a day’s work on it isn’t going to make much progress on it, so we delay starting in earnest until the last minute. Then it all ends in panic, and having to finish it in a big hairy time-pressured ball of stress.

The strategy to counter that is to break the big task up into lots of little sub-tasks. You won’t get the whole dissertation written today, but you can tick off some of the papers you need to read. You can still get a sense of accomplishment from ticking off the “sub-tasks”.

Anything that gives you a feeling of progress is going to motivate you to keep working every day on the project.

And for projects where the daily tasks are very repetitive, consider tracking your actions on a wall-chart.

Try putting a simple tick on each day of the calendar when you fulfil the habit you set out to achieve each day: whether that’s going for a run, or spending 10 minutes reading ahead for your classes the next day.

It’s surprisingly satisfying to see that streak of days building up. Visual proof that you’ve now accomplished the action you intended to take for 3 days running, or 10 days running, or for 30 days running!

And you’d better do it again tomorrow – you don’t want to break that streak!

And speaking of “tomorrow”, that brings us nicely to our fifteenth and final strategy:

15. Connecting to your future self

Fascinating research suggests it’s possible to re-programme your brain to value your future self more than it does currently. (At least temporarily – and that might be all it takes to improve your study habits and get into a new way of working for good).

So make the future feel closer: connect to your “future self”.

To do this in practice:

• Hang out with your future self on AgingBooth: ( iOS / Android ) an app that transforms a picture of your face into what you’ll look like decades in the future. I’ve even known people to get their AgingBooth photo framed and hung on their wall, as a constant (if slightly weird?) reminder of your very distant future.
• Use FutureMe.org to send an email to your future self: write a letter to yourself to be delivered at a time of your choosing. “Dear Me, I hope you’re happy with the results I’m currently working so hard for you to enjoy…”. The act of writing the letter connects you with your future self, makes you think hard about what “future you” will want. Receiving the letter is a pretty wild moment too!

Both of these strategies will help bring your perceptions of the future a little closer, helping to motivate your inner caveman to make preparing for the future a priority in the present.

That helps reset the balance between your long-term motivations to work towards an important goal, and your inner caveman’s love of a quick thrill in the present.

As a quick aside, I see you’re listening to this from the future – what’s it like?!

Did you manage to figure out how to improve your study habits…?

An invitation: take the shortcut to exam success, with my help

Before I leave you, I want to end today with an invitation.

If you’re studying for exams at school, university, college, or in the workplace to further your career, I hope you’ve found this blog helpful. I put a lot of energy into creating it for you, and I know there are literally hundreds of thousands of students who use my free resources to get an advantage in their exams.

But if you’re looking for the ultimate shortcut to study smarter, upgrade your study habits, and get the exam outcomes you’re for with less work and less stress, I would like to warmly invite you to my exam success coaching programme.

You can work with me for as little as a single one-off session to rapidly fine-tune an aspect of your study habits or exam technique, or invest in maximising success while minimising your stress levels with a long-term coaching programme throughout exam season or even through your whole course.

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How to Improve Your Study Skills

Last Updated: April 15, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Sean Alexander, MS . Sean Alexander is an Academic Tutor specializing in teaching mathematics and physics. Sean is the Owner of Alexander Tutoring, an academic tutoring business that provides personalized studying sessions focused on mathematics and physics. With over 15 years of experience, Sean has worked as a physics and math instructor and tutor for Stanford University, San Francisco State University, and Stanbridge Academy. He holds a BS in Physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara and an MS in Theoretical Physics from San Francisco State University. There are 14 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 904,089 times.

Studying is a skill you can improve, just like any other. Set yourself up for success by taking notes, keeping a study schedule, and practicing growth mindset thinking. When you start studying, limit your distractions, avoid multitasking, and take breaks to keep focused. Experiment with different strategies of preparing for tests, like using mnemonics, and joining a study group, until you find a few that work great for you.

Things You Should Know

• Create a study daily schedule to get organized. Prioritize the most important tasks and focus on one subject at a time instead of multi-tasking.
• Pay attention in class and take good notes so you can review them later. If you have any questions, bring them up to your teacher.
• Take a 10-minute break at least once an hour to avoid overloading yourself. Taking regular breaks will help you retain more information in the long-term.

Improving Your Focus

• If you like studying with music, make sure it is chill music, without words, that won't have you singing along and getting distracted.
• You can ask one of your family members to help you keep all the distractions away from you, such as mobile phones and laptops.

• Studies have shown that multitasking isn't only ineffective; it's also stressful. You can get much more enjoyment out of a task if you focus on it and do a good job, and then move on to the next thing.

• It's also very satisfying to be able to check off each item as you complete it. You feel accomplished!

• Some textbooks will also mark the most important information in bold, or have review sections going over key points. [6] X Research source

• Your brain and body need a little activity and fun so that you're able to focus again.

• Studies have shown that students who practice a growth mindset learn better than students with fixed mindsets, who tell themselves that every setback is a bad thing, instead of an opportunity to grow.
• Don't worry if you have a more negative mindset now. You can develop a growth mindset with lots of positive self-talk.

• Aim to get 8-9 hours of sleep a night, or more if that's what you need.

Memorizing Information Strategically

• For example, a tactile learner would best learn how a clock works by taking one apart and putting it back together.
• A visual learner would look at a diagram of how the clock worked.
• A reading/writing learner would read an essay about the clock's function and take notes.
• An auditory learner would listen to a lecture about it.
• If you're not sure what you're learning style is, you can take an online quiz about it here: http://www.educationplanner.org/students/self-assessments/learning-styles-quiz.shtml

• Try building a visual memory of things you need to remember if you're a visual learner. For example, if you have to recite a long poem for your English class, try to picture each line or verse as a specific image.

• Taking notes in class also forces you to pay attention.
• Don't feel the need to write down every word your teacher says.

• If you're going to have to write an essay on your test, don't just memorize information that you might have to include. Actually practice writing an essay in a short amount of time, so that when the day comes, you won't feel nervous, because you've done it before.

• Cramming the night before a test isn't just stressful and exhausting, it's also not very effective.

• If your study group is having trouble focusing, try setting a timer for 45 minutes. Say: “Let's study until the timer rings, and then we'll have a snack break,” or something like that. Having a short, set amount of time to focus is more manageable.

• Depending on the concept, you can also try teaching it to a younger sibling or somebody else who has less knowledge than you. Trying to explain a tricky concept in simple language can clarify your understanding. Also, explain your study concept to someone. This will help you understand the concept better because you're talking out loud. If you can't talk to someone, talk to your pet, your TV, your pillow, your imaginary friend, etc. The point of this isn't to teach someone the concept, it is to read it out loud, but it might feel weird talking to yourself, which is why talking to someone or something can help.

• Try your best on a problem before you ask for help from your teacher. Then phrase your question like this, “I tried this, but I couldn't figure it out. Could you help?” or “I understand this part, but I'm confused about that part. What does it mean?” This will make it clear that you're not asking your teacher to do your work for you, you are just looking for clarification.

Joseph Meyer

Review basic concepts before diving into advanced topics. Identifying the gaps in your knowledge helps you avoid difficulties later on. Take an assessment or get your teacher's advice on where you can improve. Practice targeted exercises to build a strong foundation so you can confidently tackle new lessons.

Supercharge Your Studying with this Expert Series

Expert Q&A

Reader Videos

• Remember to close your door so that you don't get distracted by noise anywhere else in the area. Thanks Helpful 3 Not Helpful 0
• Switch off your cellphone before preparing for studying. Thanks Helpful 3 Not Helpful 0
• Don't lie down when you study. You may find yourself dozing off and not getting any work done. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 1

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/take-charge-of-distractions/
• ↑ Sean Alexander, MS. Academic Tutor. Expert Interview. 14 May 2020.
• ↑ https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/studying-101-study-smarter-not-harder/
• ↑ https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/taking-notes-while-reading/
• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ulterior-motives/201108/test-yourself-learn-better
• ↑ https://success.oregonstate.edu/sites/success.oregonstate.edu/files/LearningCorner/Tools/taking_breaks_from_studying.pdf
• ↑ https://hbr.org/2016/01/what-having-a-growth-mindset-actually-means
• ↑ https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/sleeping-to-succeed/
• ↑ https://www.stetson.edu/administration/academic-success/media/LEARNING%20STYLE%20TIPS.pdf
• ↑ https://opentextbc.ca/studentsuccess/chapter/memory-techniques/
• ↑ http://labs.psychology.illinois.edu/~lyubansk/Therapy/Tips.htm
• ↑ https://www.lib.sfu.ca/about/branches-depts/slc/learning/exam-prep/efficient-effective-study
• ↑ https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/study-partners/
• ↑ https://www.youthcentral.vic.gov.au/study-and-training/help-with-study/how-to-study-better/top-10-study-tips

About This Article

To improve your study skills, always start by studying the hardest subject first since you'll be more alert and focused when you first start studying. Also, remember to take a break from studying every once in a while to go for a walk or listen to some music, which will prevent you from feeling stressed and overwhelmed. It's also helpful to quiz yourself as you're studying so you know which things you don't understand and should spend more time on. To learn how to create an ideal study space, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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To What Extent Do Study Habits Relate to Performance?

Elise m. walck-shannon.

† Biology Department, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130

Shaina F. Rowell

‡ Center for Integrative Research on Cognition, Learning, and Education (CIRCLE), Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130

Regina F. Frey

§ Department of Chemistry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112

Associated Data

Students’ study sessions outside class are important learning opportunities in college courses. However, we often depend on students to study effectively without explicit instruction. In this study, we described students’ self-reported study habits and related those habits to their performance on exams. Notably, in these analyses, we controlled for potential confounds, such as academic preparation, self-reported class absences, and self-reported total study time. First, we found that, on average, students used approximately four active strategies to study and that they spent about half of their study time using active strategies. In addition, both the number of active strategies and the proportion of their study time using active strategies positively predicted exam performance. Second, on average, students started studying 6 days before an exam, but how early a student started studying was not related to performance on in-term (immediate) or cumulative (delayed) exams. Third, on average, students reported being distracted about 20% of their study time, and distraction while studying negatively predicted exam performance. These results add nuance to lab findings and help instructors prioritize study habits to target for change.

INTRODUCTION

One of our goals in college courses is to help students develop into independent, self-regulated learners. This requires students to perform several metacognitive tasks on their own, including setting goals, choosing strategies, monitoring and reflecting on performance, and modifying those steps over time ( Zimmerman, 2002 ). There are many challenges that learners encounter in developing self-regulation. One such challenge is that students often misjudge their learning during the monitoring and reflection phases ( Kornell and Bjork, 2007 ). Often, students feel that they learn more from cognitively superficial tasks than from cognitively effortful tasks. As one example, students may feel that they have learned more if they reread a text passage multiple times than if they are quizzed on that same material ( Karpicke and Roediger, 2008 ). In contrast to students’ judgments, many effortful tasks are highly effective for learning. R. A. Bjork defines these effective, effortful tasks as desirable difficulties ( Bjork, 1994 ). In the present study, we investigated the frequency with which students reported carrying out effortful (active) or superficial (passive) study habits in a large introductory biology course. Additionally, we examined the relationship between study habits and performance on exams while controlling for prior academic preparation and total study time.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Why would difficulties be desirable.

During learning, the goal is to generate knowledge or skills that are robustly integrated with related knowledge and easily accessible. Desirable difficulties promote cognitive processes that either aid forming robust, interconnected knowledge or skills or retrieving that knowledge or skill ( Bjork, 1994 ; also see Marsh and Butler, 2013 , for a chapter written for educators). Learners employing desirable difficulties may feel that they put in more effort and make more mistakes, but they are actually realizing larger gains toward long-term learning than learners using cognitively superficial tasks.

Which Study Habits Are Difficult in a Desirable Way?

Study habits can include a wide variety of behaviors, from the amount of time that students study, to the strategies that they use while studying, to the environment in which they study. The desirable difficulties framework ( Bjork and Bjork, 2011 ), describes two main kinds of effective habits that apply to our study: 1) using effortful study strategies or techniques that prompt students to generate something or test themselves during studying and 2) distributing study time into multiple sessions to avoid “cramming” near the exam. In the following two paragraphs, we expand upon these study habits of interest.

The desirable difficulties framework suggests that study strategies whereby students actively generate a product or test themselves promote greater long-term learning than study strategies whereby students passively consume presentations. This is supported by strong evidence for the “generation effect,” in which new knowledge or skills are more robustly encoded and retrieved if you generate a solution, explanation, or summary, rather than looking it up ( Jacoby, 1978 ). A few generative strategies that are commonly reported among students—summarization, self-explanation, and practice testing—are compared below. Summarization is a learning strategy in which students identify key points and combine them into a succinct explanation in their own words. As predicted by the generation effect, evidence suggests that summarization is more effective than rewriting notes (e.g., laboratory study by Bretzing and Kulhavy, 1979 ) or reviewing notes (e.g., classroom study by King, 1992 ). Self-explanation is a learning strategy wherein students ask “how” and “why” questions for material as they are being exposed to the material or shortly after ( Berry, 1983 ). This is one form of elaborative interrogation, a robust memory technique in which learners generate more expansive details for new knowledge to help them remember that information ( Pressley et al. , 1987 ). Self-explanation requires little instruction and seems to be helpful for a broad array of tasks, including recall, comprehension, and transfer. Further, it is more effective than summarization (e.g., classroom study by King, 1992 ), perhaps because it prompts students to make additional connections between new and existing knowledge. Practice testing is supported by evidence of the “testing effect,” for which retrieving information itself actually promotes learning ( Karpicke and Roediger, 2008 ). The memory benefits of the “testing effect” can be achieved with any strategy in which students complete problems or practice retrieval without relying on external materials (quizzing, practice testing, flashcards, etc.). In this study, we refer to these strategies together as “self-quizzing.” Self-quizzing is especially effective at improving performance on delayed tests, even as long as 9–11 months after initial learning ( Carpenter, 2009 ). Additionally, in the laboratory, self-quizzing has been shown to be effective on a range of tasks from recall to inference ( Karpicke and Blunt, 2011 ). Overall, research suggests that active, more effortful strategies—such as self-quizzing, summarization, and self-explanation—are more effective for learning than passive strategies—such as rereading and rewriting notes. In this study, we asked whether these laboratory findings would extend to students’ self-directed study time, focusing especially on the effectiveness of effortful (herein, “active”) study strategies.

The second effective habit described by the desirable difficulties framework is to avoid cramming study time near exam time. The “spacing effect” describes the phenomenon wherein, when given equal study time, spacing study out into multiple sessions promotes greater long-term learning than massing (i.e., cramming) study into one study session. Like the “testing effect,” the “spacing effect” is especially pronounced for longer-term tests in the laboratory ( Rawson and Kintsch, 2005 ). Based on laboratory studies, we would expect that, in a course context, cramming study time into fewer sessions close to an exam would be less desirable for long-term learning than distributing study time over multiple sessions, especially if that learning is measured on a delay.

However, estimating spacing in practice is more complicated. Classroom studies have used two main methodologies to estimate spacing, either asking the students to report their study schedules directly ( Susser and McCabe, 2013 ) or asking students to choose whether they describe their pattern of study as spaced out or occurring in one session ( Hartwig and Dunlosky, 2012 ; Rodriguez et al. , 2018 ). The results from these analyses have been mixed; in some cases, spacing has been a significant, positive predictor of performance ( Rodriquez et al. , 2018 ; Susser and McCabe, 2013 ), but in other cases it has not ( Hartwig and Dunlosky, 2012 ).

In the present study, we do not claim measure spacing directly. Lab definitions of spacing are based on studying the same topic over multiple sessions. But, because our exams have multiple topics, some students who start studying early may not revisit the same topic in multiple sessions. Rather, in this study, we measure what we refer to as “spacing potential.” For example, if students study only on the day before the exam, there is little potential for spacing. If, instead, they are studying across 7 days, there is more potential for spacing. We collected two spacing potential measurements: (1) cramming , or the number of days in advance that a student began studying for the exam; and (2) consistency , or the number of days in the week leading up to an exam that a student studied. Based on our measurements, students with a higher spacing potential would exhibit less cramming and study more consistently than students with lower spacing potential. Because not every student with a high spacing potential may actually space out the studying of a single topic into multiple sessions, spacing potential is likely to underestimate the spacing effect; however, it is a practical way to indirectly estimate spacing in practice.

Importantly, not all difficult, or effortful, study tasks are desirable ( Bjork and Bjork, 2011 ). For example, in the present study, we examined students’ level of distraction while studying. Distraction can come in many forms, commonly “multitasking,” or splitting one’s attention among multiple tasks (e.g., watching lectures while also scrolling through social media). However, multitasking has been shown to decrease working memory for the study tasks at hand ( May and Elder, 2018 ). Thus, it may make a task more difficult, but in a way that interferes with learning rather than contributing to it.

In summary, available research suggests that active, effortful study strategies are more effective than passive ones; that cramming is less effective than distributing studying over time; and that focused study is more effective than distracted study. Whether students choose to use these more effective practices during their independent study time is a separate question.

How Do Students Actually Study for Their Courses?

There have been several studies surveying students’ general study habits. When asked free-response questions about their study strategies in general, students listed an average of 2.9 total strategies ( Karpicke et al. , 2009 ). In addition, few students listed active strategies, such as self-quizzing, but many students listed more passive strategies, such as rereading.

There have also been studies asking whether what students actually do while they are studying is related to their achievement. Hartwig and Dunlosky (2012) surveyed 324 college students about their general study habits and found that self-quizzing and rereading were positively correlated with grade point average (GPA). Other studies have shown that using Facebook or texting during study sessions was negatively associated with college GPA ( Junco, 2012 ; Junco and Cotten, 2012 ). While these findings are suggestive, we suspect that the use of study strategies and the relationship between study strategies and achievement may differ from discipline to discipline. The research we have reviewed thus far has been conducted for students’ “general” study habits, rather than for specific courses. To learn about how study habits relate to learning biology, it is necessary to look at study habits within the context of biology courses.

How Do Students Study for Biology Courses?

Several prior qualitative studies carried out within the context of specific biology courses have shown that students often report ineffective habits, such as favoring passive strategies or cramming. Hora and Oleson ( 2017 ) found that, when asked about study habits in focus groups, students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses (including biology) used predominantly passive strategies such as reviewing notes or texts, practices that in some cases were unchanged from high school. Tomanek and Montplaisir (2004) found that the majority of 13 interviewed students answered questions on old exams (100% of students) and reread lecture slides (92.3% of students) or the textbook (61.5% of students) to study for a biology exam, but only a small minority participated in deeper tasks such as explaining concepts to a peer (7.7% of students) or generating flashcards for retrieval practice (7.7% of students). We can also learn indirectly about students’ study habits by analyzing what they would change upon reflection. For example, in another study within an introductory biology classroom, Stanton and colleagues ( 2015 ) asked students what they would change about their studying for the next exam. In this context, 13.5% of students said that using active strategies would be more effective for learning, and 55.5% said that they wanted to spend more time studying, many of whom reported following through by studying earlier for the next exam ( Stanton et al. , 2015 ). In the current study, we extended prior research by exploring the prevalence of multiple study habits simultaneously, including the use of active study strategy and study timing, in a large sample of introductory biology students.

In addition to characterizing students’ study habits, we also aimed to show how those study habits were related to performance in a biology classroom. In one existing study, there were positive associations between exam performance and some (but not all) active strategies—such as completing practice exams and taking notes—but no significant associations between performance and some more passive strategies—such as reviewing notes/screencasts or reviewing the textbook ( Sebesta and Bray Speth, 2017 ). In another study, both self-reported study patterns (e.g., spacing studies into multiple sessions or one single session) and self-quizzing were positively related to overall course grade in a molecular biology course ( Rodriguez et al. , 2018 ). We build on this previous work by asking whether associations between performance and a wide variety of study habits still hold when controlling for confounding variables, such as student preparation and total study time.

In this study, we asked whether students actually use cognitive psychologists’ recommendations from the desirable difficulty framework in a specific biology course, and we investigated whether students who reported using those recommendations during studying performed differently on exams than those who did not. We wanted to focus on how students spend their study time, rather than the amount of time that they study, their level of preparation, or engagement. Therefore, we used regression analyses to hold preparation (i.e., ACT math and the course pretest scores), self-reported class absences, and overall study time equal. In this way, we estimated the relationship between particular study habit variables—including the strategies that students use, their timing of using those strategies, and their level of distraction while studying—and exam performance.

Based on previous research and the desirable difficulties framework, we hypothesized that:

• Students would use a combination of active and passive strategies, but those who used more active study strategies or who devoted more of their study time to active strategies would perform higher on their exams than those who used fewer active strategies or devoted less time to active strategies.
• Students would vary in their study timing, but those with less spacing potential (e.g., crammed their study time or studied less consistently) would perform worse, especially on long-term tests (final exam and course posttest), than students with more spacing potential.
• Students would report at least some distraction during their studying, but those who reported being distracted for a smaller percent of their study time would score higher on exams than students who reported being distracted for a larger percent of their study time.

Context and Participants

Data for this study were gathered from a large-enrollment introductory biology course (total class size was 623) during the Spring 2019 semester at a selective, private institution in the Midwest. This course covers basic biochemistry and molecular genetics. It is the first semester of a two-semester sequence. Students who take this course are generally interested in life science majors and/or have pre-health intentions. The data for this study came from an on-campus repository; both the repository and this study have been approved by our internal review board (IRB ID: 201810007 for this study; IRB ID: 201408004 for the repository). There were no exclusion criteria for the study. Anyone who gave consent and for whom all variables were available was considered for the analyses. However, because the variables were different in each analysis, the sample differed slightly from analysis to analysis. When we compared students who were included in the first hypothesis’s analyses to students who gave consent but were not included, we found no significant differences between participants and nonparticipants for ACT math score, pretest score, year in school, sex, or race (Supplemental Table 1). This suggested that our sample did not dramatically differ from the class as a whole.

Other than those analyses labeled “post hoc,” analyses were preplanned before data were retrieved.

Timeline of Assignments Used in This Study

Figure 1 shows a timeline of the assignments analyzed in this study, which included the exam 1 and 2 reflections (both online), exams 1 and 2 (both in person), the course pre and post knowledge tests (both online), and a cumulative final exam (in person). As shown in the text boxes within Figure 1 , the majority (85.7% [430/502] or greater) of students completed each of the assignments that were used in this study.

Timeline of assignments used in this study organized by mode of submission (online vs. in person) and grading (completion vs. accuracy). Exam days are indicated by thick lines. There were other course assignments (including a third exam), but they are not depicted here, because they were not analyzed in this study. Exam return is indicated by dotted lines. Light gray boxes represent weeks that class was in session. The number of consenting students who completed each assignment is indicated in the corresponding assignment box; the total number of consenting students was 502.

Exam Reflections

Students’ responses to exam 1 and 2 study habits reflections were central to all of our hypotheses. In these reflection assignments, students were asked to indicate their study habits leading up to the exam (see Supplemental Item 1 for prompts), including the timing of studying and type of study strategies. The list of strategies for students to choose from came from preliminary analysis of open-response questions in previous years. To increase the likelihood that students accurately remembered their study habits, we made the exercise available online immediately after each exam for 5 days. The reflection assignment was completed before exam grades were returned to students so that their performance did not bias their memory of studying. Students received 0.20% of the total course points for completion of each reflection.

Exams in this course contained both structured-response (multiple-choice, matching, etc.) and free-response questions. The exams were given in person and contained a mixture of lower-order cognitive level (i.e., recall and comprehension) and higher-order cognitive level (i.e., application, analysis, synthesis, or evaluation) questions. Two independent (A.B and G. Y.) raters qualitatively coded exam questions by cognitive level using a rubric slightly modified from Crowe et al. (2008) to bin lower-order and higher-order level questions. This revealed that 38% of exam points were derived from higher-order questions. Each in-term exam was worth 22.5% of the course grade, and the cumulative final exam was worth 25% of the course grade. To prepare for the exams, students were assigned weekly quizzes and were given opportunities for optional practice quizzing and in-class clicker questions as formative assessment. Students were also provided with weekly learning objectives and access to the previous year’s exams. None of the exam questions were identical to questions presented previously in problem sets, old exams, or quizzes. Additionally, in the first week of class, students were given a handout about effective study strategies that included a list of active study techniques along with content-specific examples. Further, on the first quiz, students were asked to determine the most active way to use a particular resource from a list of options. The mean and SD of these exams, and all other variables used in this analysis, can be found in Supplemental Table 2. Pairwise correlations for all variables can be found in Supplemental Table 3

Pre and Post Knowledge Test

As described previously ( Walck-Shannon et al. , 2019 ), the pre/posttest is a multiple-choice test that had been developed by the instructor team. The test contained 38 questions, but the percentage of questions correct is reported here for ease of interpretation. The same test was given online in the first week of classes and after class sessions had ended. One percent extra credit was given to students who completed both tests. To encourage students to participate fully, we presented the pre and posttests as learning opportunities in the course to foreshadow topics for the course (pretest) or review topics for the final (posttest). Additionally, we told students that “reasonable effort” was required for credit. Expressing this rationale seemed to be effective for participation rates. While others have found that participation is low when extra credit is offered as an incentive (38%, Padilla-Walker et al. , 2005 ), we found participation rates for the pre- and posttests to be high; 97.4% of students completed the pretest and 85.9% of students completed the posttest.

Statistical Analyses

To test our three hypotheses, we used hierarchical regression. We controlled for potential confounding variables in step 1 and factored in the study variable of interest at step 2 for each model. We performed the following steps to check that the assumptions of linear regression were met for each model: first, we made scatter plots and found that the relationship was roughly linear, rather than curved; second, we plotted the histogram of residuals and found that they were normally distributed and centered around zero; and finally, we checked for multicollinearity by verifying that no two variables in the model were highly correlated (greater than 0.8). All statistical analyses were performed in JMP Pro (SAS Institute).

Base Model Selection

The purpose of the base model was to account for potential confounding variables. Thus, we included variables that we theoretically expected to explain some variance in exam performance based on previous studies. First, based on a meta-analysis ( Westrick et al. , 2015 ) and our own previous study with a different cohort in this same course ( Walck-Shannon et al. , 2019 ), we expected academic preparation to predict performance. Therefore, we included ACT math and biology pretest scores in our base model. Second, the negative relationship between self-reported class absences and exam or course performance is well documented ( Gump, 2005 ; Lin and Chen, 2006 ; Credé et al. , 2010 ). Therefore, we included the number of class sessions missed in our base model. Finally, our research questions focus on how students use their study time, rather than the relationship between study time itself and performance. Because others have found a small but significant relationship between total study time and performance ( Credé and Kuncel, 2008 ), we controlled for the total number of hours spent studying in our base model. In summary, theoretical considerations of confounds prompted us to include ACT math score, biology pretest score, self-reported class absences, and self-reported exam study time as the base for each model.

Calculated Indices

In the following sections we provide descriptions of variables that were calculated from the reported data. If variables were used directly as input by the student (e.g., class absences, percent of study time distracted) or directly as reported by the registrar (e.g., ACT score), they are not listed below.

Total Exam Study Time.

In students’ exam reflections, they were asked to report both the number of hours that they studied each day in the week leading up to the exam and any hours that they spent studying more than 1 week ahead of the exam. The total exam study time was the sum of these study hours.

Number of Active Strategies Used.

To determine the number of active strategies used, we first had to define which strategies were active. To do so, all authors reviewed literature about desirable difficulties and effective study strategies (also reviewed in Bjork and Bjork, 2011 , and Dunlosky et al. , 2013 , respectively). Then, each author categorized the strategies independently. Finally, we met to discuss until agreement was reached. The resulting categorizations are given in Table 1 . Students who selected “other” and wrote a text description were recoded into existing categories. After the coding was in place, we summed the number of active strategies that each student reported to yield the number of active strategies variable.

Specific study strategy prompts from exam reflections, listed in prevalence of use for exam 1 a

a The classification of the strategy into active and passive is stated in “type.” Prevalences for exam 1 ( n = 424) and exam 2 ( n = 471) are reported.

Proportion of Study Time Using Active Strategies.

In addition to asking students which strategies they used, we also asked them to estimate the percentage of their study time they spent using each strategy. To calculate the proportion of study time using active strategies, we summed the percentages of time using each of the active strategies, then divided by the sum of the percentages for all strategies. For most students (90.0% for exam 1 and 92.8% for exam 2), the sum of all percentages was 100%. However, there were some students whose reported percentages did not add to 100%. If the summed percentages added to between 90 and 110%, they were still included in analyses. If, for example, the sum of all percentages was 90%, and 40% of that was using active strategies, this would become 0.44 (40/90). If the summed percentages were lower than 90% or higher than 110%, students were excluded from the analyses involving the proportion of active study time index.

Number of Days in Advance Studying Began.

In the exam 2 reflection, we asked students to report: 1) their study hours in the week leading up to the exam; and 2) if they began before this time, the total number of hours and date that they began studying. If students did not report any study hours earlier than the week leading up to the exam, we used their first reported study hour as the first day of study. If students did report study time before the week before the exam, we used the reported date that studying began as the first day of study. To get the number of days in advance variable, we counted the number of days between the first day of study and the day of the exam. If a student began studying on exam day, this would be recorded as 0. All students reported some amount of studying.

Number of Days Studied in Week Leading Up to the Exam.

As a measure of studying consistency, we counted the number of days that each student reported studying in the week leading up to exam 2. More specifically, the number of days with nonzero reported study hours were summed to give the number of days studied.

The study strategies that students selected, the timing with which they implemented those strategies, and the level of distraction they reported while doing so are described below. We depict the frequencies with which certain study variables were reported and correlate those study variables to exam 1 and exam 2 scores. For all performance analyses described in the Results section, we first controlled for a base model described below.

We attempted to control for some confounding variables using a base model, which included preparation (ACT math and course pretest percentage), self-reported class absences, and self-reported total study hours. For each analysis, we included all consenting individuals who responded to the relevant reflection questions for the model. Thus, the sample size and values for the variables in the base model differed slightly from analysis to analysis. For brevity, only the first base model is reported in the main text; the other base models included the same variables and are reported in Supplemental Tables 5A, 7A, and 8A.

The base model significantly predicted exam 1 score and exam 2 score for all analyses. Table 2 shows these results for the first analysis; exam 1: R 2 = 0.327, F (4, 419) = 51.010, p < 0.0001; exam 2: R 2 = 0.219, F(4, 466) = 32.751, p < 0.0001. As expected, all individual predictor terms were significant for both exams, with preparation and study time variables positively associated and absences negatively associated. For means and SDs of all continuous variables in this study, see Supplemental Table 2. We found that the preparatory variables were the most predictive, with the course pretest being more predictive than ACT math score. Total study time and class absences were predictive of performance to a similar degree. In summary, our base model accounted for a substantial proportion (32.7%) of the variance due to preparation, class absences, and study time, which allowed us to interpret the relationship between particular study habits and performance more directly.

Base model for hierarchical regression analyses in Table 3 for exam 1 ( n = 424) and exam 2 ( n = 471) a

Did Students Who Used More Active Study Strategies Perform Better on Exams?

We first investigated the specific study strategies listed in Table 1 . Then, we examined the total amount of time spent on active strategies to test our hypothesis that students who spent more time actively studying performed better on exams. Further, we counted the number of different types of active strategies that students used to test whether students who used a more diverse set of active strategies performed better on exams than those who used fewer active strategies.

Study Strategies Differed in Their Frequency of Use and Effectiveness.

The frequency with which specific study strategies were employed is reported in Table 1 . Almost all students reported reading notes. The next most prevalent strategies were active in nature, including that students (in order of prevalence) completed problem sets, completed old exams, self-quizzed, synthesized notes, explained concepts, and made diagrams. Surprisingly, each of these active strategies was used by the majority of students (54.7–86.1%) for both exams 1 and 2 ( Table 1 ). Less frequently used strategies included those more passive in nature, including that students (in order of prevalence) watched lectures, reviewed online content, read the textbook, and rewrote notes. A relatively infrequent strategy was attending review sessions, office hours, and help sessions. Because student engagement varied dramatically in these different venues, we classified this category as mixed. In summary, our results showed that, after reading notes, the most frequently used strategies were active strategies.

Next, we wondered whether the types of strategies that students reported using were related to exam performance. For these analyses, we added whether a student used a specific strategy (0 or 1) into the model, after controlling for the base model reported in Table 2 . When holding preparation, class absences, and total study time equal, we found that, on average, students who reported having completed problem sets, explained concepts, self-quizzed, or attended review sessions earned 4.0–7.7% higher on average on both exams 1 and 2 than students who did not report using the strategy (see b unstd. in Table 3 ). Notably, these strategies were active in nature, except for the category attending review session, which was mixed in nature. The remaining active strategies were positively correlated to performance for only one of the exams. Additionally, we observed that the strategies categorized as passive were either nonsignificant or negatively related to performance on at least one exam. Together, these results suggest that active strategies tended to be positively related to exam performance. In our sample, each of these active strategies was used by the majority (more than half) of the students.

Relating specific study strategy use to performance on exam 1 ( n = 424) and exam 2 ( n = 471) when controlling for preparation, class absences, and total study hours (base model) a

The Proportion of Time Spent Using Active Strategies Positively Predicted Exam Score.

To further understand how active strategies related to performance, we investigated the proportion of study time that students spent using active strategies. On average, students spent about half of their study time using active strategies for exam 1 (M = 0.524, SD = 0.244) and exam 2 (M = 0.548, SD = 0.243), though values varied from 0 to 1 ( Figure 2 ). Importantly, students who spent a larger proportion of their study time on active strategies tended to perform better on exams 1 and 2. More specifically, after accounting for our base model (Supplemental Table 5A), the proportion of time students spent using active strategies added significant additional predictive value for exam 1, F (1, 416) = 8.770, p = 0.003, Δ R 2 = 0.014; and exam 2, F (1, 450) = 14.848, p = 0.0001, Δ R 2 = 0.024. When holding preparation, class absences, and total study time equal, we found that students who spent all of their study time on active strategies scored 5.5% higher and 10.0% higher on exams 1 and 2, respectively, than those who spent none of their study time on active strategies ( Table 4 ). Overall, these two results suggested that, on average, students spent about half of their study time using active strategies and students who devoted more study time to active strategies tended to perform better on exams.

Distribution of the proportion of time that students devoted to active study for exam 1 ( n = 422) and exam 2 ( n = 456). Percentages of students in each bin are indicated.

Relating active study strategy use to performance on exam 1 ( n = 422) and exam 2 ( n = 456) when controlling for preparation, class absences, and total study hours (base model) a

The Number of Active Strategies Used Positively Predicted Exam Score.

We next investigated the number of active strategies used by each student. On average, students used approximately four active strategies for exam 1 (M = 4.212, SD = 1.510) and exam 2 (M = 4.239, SD = 1.501). Very few students used no active strategies and most students (73%) used four or more active strategies ( Figure 3 ). Further, those students who used more active strategies tended to perform higher on exams 1 and 2. More specifically, after accounting for our base model, the number of active strategies students used added significant additional predictive value for exam 1, ( F (1, 416) = 33.698, p < 0.0001 Δ R 2 = 0.024; and exam 2, F (1, 450) = 91.083, p < 0.0001, Δ R 2 = 0.066. When holding preparation, class absences, and total study time equal, we found that, for each additional active strategy used, students scored 1.9% and 2.8% higher on exams 1 and 2, respectively. Students who used all six active strategies scored 11.1% higher and 16.6% higher on exams 1 and 2, respectively, than those who used no active strategies ( Table 4 , See Supplemental Table 5A for base model). In summary, students who used a greater diversity of active strategies tended to perform better on exams.

Distribution of the number of active strategies that each student used for exam 1 ( n = 422) and exam 2 ( n = 456). Percentages of students in each bin are indicated.

Post Hoc Analysis 1: Are Certain Active Strategies Uniquely Predictive of Performance?

Though it was not part of our planned analyses, the previous finding that the number of active strategies is predictive of performance made us question whether certain active strategies are uniquely predictive or whether they each have overlapping benefits. To test this, we added all six of the active strategies into the model as separate variables in the same step. When doing so, we found that the following active strategies were distinctly predictive for both exams 1 and 2: explaining concepts, self-quizzing, and completing problem sets (Supplemental Table 6). In other words, the portion of exam-score variance explained by certain active strategies was non-overlapping.

Did Study Timing Predict Performance on Immediate or Delayed Exams?

We next characterized students’ spacing potential using two indices: 1) the number of days in advance that studying began (cramming) and 2) the number of days in the week leading up to the exam that a student studied (consistency). Notably, in these results, we adjusted for our base model, which included total study time. In this way, we addressed the timing of studying while holding the total amount of studying equal. We examined outcomes at two different times: exam 2, which came close after studying; and the cumulative final exam and the posttest, which came after about a 5-week delay.

Cramming Was Not a Significant Predictor of Exam 2, the Final Exam, or the Posttest.

While there was variation in the degree of cramming among students, this was not predictive of exam score on either immediate or delayed tests. On average, students began studying 5.842 d in advance of exam 2 (SD = 4.377). About a third of students began studying 0–3 days before the exam, and another third began studying 4–6 days before the exam ( Figure 4 A). When holding preparation, class absences, and total study time equal, we found that the number of days in advance that studying began was not a significant predictor of in-term exam 2, the posttest, or the cumulative final ( Table 5 ; see Supplemental Table 7A for base model).

Distributions of spacing potential variables for exam 2 ( n = 450). (A) The distribution of the days in advance that exam 2 studying began (cramming); (B) the distribution of the number of days studied in the week before exam 2 (consistency). Percentages of students in each bin are indicated.

Relating spacing potential to performance on in-term exam 2 ( n = 447), the posttest ( n = 392), and the cumulative final exam ( n = 450) when controlling for preparation, class absences, and total study hours (base model) a

Studying Consistency Was Not a Significant Predictor of Exam 2, the Final Exam, or the Posttest.

While there was variation in how consistently students studied in the week leading up to exam 2, this consistency was not predictive of exam score either immediately or on delayed tests. On average, students studied 5 of the 8 days leading up to the exam (M = 5.082, SD = 1.810 ). Sixteen percent of students studied every day, and no students studied fewer than 2 days in the week leading up to the exam ( Figure 4 B). When holding preparation, class absences, and total study time equal, we found that the number of days studied in the week leading up to the exam was not a significant predictor of in-term exam 2, the posttest, or the cumulative final ( Table 5 ; see Supplemental Table 7A for base model).

In summary, our students varied in both the degree of cramming and the consistency of their studying. Even so, when holding preparation, class absences, and study time equal as part of our base model, neither of these spacing potential measures were predictive of performance on immediate or delayed tests.

Did Students Who Reported Being Less Distracted while Studying Perform Better on Exams?

In addition to the timing of studying, another factor that contextualizes the study strategies is how focused students are during study sessions. In the exam reflections, we asked students how distracted they were while studying. Here, we relate those estimates to exam scores while controlling for our base model of preparation, class absences, and total study time.

Distraction while Studying Was a Negative Predictor of Exam Score.

On average, students reported being distracted during 20% of their exam 1 and exam 2 study time (exam 1: M = 20.733, SD = 16.478; exam 2: M = 20.239, SD = 15.506) . Sixty-one percent of students reported being distracted during more than 10% of their study time ( Figure 5 ). Further, students who were more distracted while studying tended to perform lower on exams 1 and 2. After accounting for our base model, the percent of study time that students reported being distracted added significant additional predictive value for exam 1 and exam 2; exam 1: F (1, 429) = 12.365, p = 0.000, Δ R 2 = 0.019; exam 2: F (1, 467) = 8.942, p = 0.003, Δ R 2 = 0.015. When holding preparation, class absences, and total study time equal, we found that students who reported being distracted 10% more than other students scored about 1% lower on exams 1 and 2 ( Table 6 ; see Supplemental Table 8A for base model). In summary, this suggests that not only was it common for students to be distracted while studying, but this was also negatively related to exam performance.

Distribution of the percent of time students reported being distracted while studying for exam 1 ( n = 435) and exam 2 ( n = 473). Percentages of students in each bin are indicated.

Relating study distraction to performance on exam 1 ( n = 435) and exam 2 ( n = 473) when controlling for preparation, class absences, and total study hours (base model) a

Students’ independent study behaviors are an important part of their learning in college courses. When holding preparation, class absences, and total study time equal, we found that students who spent more time on effortful, active study strategies and used a greater number of active strategies had higher scores for exams. Yet neither students who started studying earlier nor those who studied over more sessions scored differently than students who started later or studied over fewer sessions. Additionally, students who were more distracted while studying tended to perform worse than students who were less distracted. In other words, both the degree to which students employed desirably difficult strategies while studying and their level of focus when doing so were important for performance.

Specific Study Strategies (Hypothesis 1)

Our finding that more time and diversity of active study strategies were associated with higher exam grades was consistent with our hypothesis based on the desirable difficulties framework, laboratory, and classroom research studies ( Berry, 1983 ; King, 1992 ; Bjork, 1994 ; Karpicke and Roediger, 2008 ; Karpicke and Blunt, 2011 ; Hartwig and Dunlosky, 2012 ). Our study brought together lab research about effective strategies with what students did during self-directed study in an actual course. In doing so, we affirmed the lab findings that active strategies are generally effective, but also uncovered further nuances that highlight the value of investigating course-specific study strategies.

First, our study, when combined with other work, may have revealed that certain study strategies are more common than course-nonspecific surveys would predict. For example, compared with surveys of general study habits, our students reported relatively high use of active strategies. We found that the majority of students (73%) reported using four or more active strategies, which was more than the 2.9 average total strategies listed by students in a survey about general study habits at this same institution ( Karpicke et al. , 2009 ). In particular, we found that two-thirds of students reported the active study strategy of self-quizzing. This was considerably higher than what was found in a free-response survey about general habits not focused on a specific course at the same institution ( Karpicke et al. , 2009 ). In this survey, only 10.7% reported self-testing and 40.1% reported using flashcards. This higher frequency of self-quizzing behaviors may be due to a combination of factors in the course, the measures, and/or the students. In this course, we attempted to make self-quizzing easier by reopening the weekly quiz questions near exam time ( Walck-Shannon et al. , 2019 ). We also used a course-specific survey rather than the more general, course-nonspecific surveys used in the previous research. Additionally, it is possible that, in recent years, more students have become more aware of the benefits of self-testing and so are using this strategy with greater frequency. When we compared our frequencies of several categories to analogous categories from course-specific surveys of introductory biology students ( Sebesta and Bray Speth, 2017 ) and molecular biology students ( Rodriguez et al. , 2018 ), we saw similar results. Combined with our work, these studies suggest that when students focused on a particular course, they reported more active strategies than when prompted about studying in general.

Second, the opportunity to control for potential confounding variables in our study, including total study time, allowed us to better estimate the relationships between specific strategies and performance. This approach was important, given concerns raised by others that in classroom studies, benefits of certain strategies, such as explanation, could simply have been due to greater total study time ( Dunlosky et al. , 2013 ). Our results showed that, even when controlling for total study time, self-explanation and other strategies were still significant predictors of performance. This helped illustrate that the strategies themselves, and not just the time on task, were important considerations of students’ study habits.

Third, we were surprised by how predictive the diversity of active strategies was of performance. While we found that the proportion of active study time and the number of active strategies were both important predictors of performance, we found that the latter was a stronger predictor. This suggests that, if total study time was held equal, students who used a larger number of active strategies tended to perform better than those that used a smaller number of active strategies. This finding also deserves to be followed up in subsequent study to determine whether any of the active strategies that students use tend to co-occur in a “suite,” and whether any of those suites are particularly predictive of performance. We suspect that there is some limit to the benefit of using diverse strategies, as some strategies take a considerable amount of time to master ( Bean and Steenwyk, 1984 ; Armbruster et al. , 1987 ; Wong et al. , 2002 ), and students need to devote enough time to each strategy to learn how to use it well.

Additionally, we found that particular active study strategies—explanation, self-quizzing, and answering problem sets—were uniquely predictive of higher performance in a biology course context. Undergraduate biology courses introduce a large amount of discipline-specific terminology, in addition to requiring the higher-order prediction and application skills found among STEM courses ( Wandersee, 1988 ; Zukswert et al. , 2019 ). This is true for the course studied here, which covers biochemistry and molecular genetics, and the assessments that we used as our outcomes reflect this combination of terminology, comprehension, prediction, and application skills. Our results support the finding that active, effortful strategies can be effective on a variety of cognitive levels ( Butler, 2010 ; Karpicke and Blunt, 2011 ; Smith and Karpicke, 2014 ); and this work extends support of the desirable difficulties framework into biology by finding unique value for distinct generative or testing strategies.

Study Timing (Hypothesis 2)

Inconsistent with our second hypothesis that students with less spacing potential would perform worse than students with more spacing potential, we found no relationship between study timing and performance on in-term or cumulative exams. Because we knew that spacing was difficult to estimate, we analyzed two spacing potential indices, the degree of cramming (i.e., the number of days in advance that students started studying) and the consistency of studying (i.e., the number of days studied in the week leading up to the exam). We controlled for total study time, because the spacing effect is defined as identical study time spread over multiple sessions rather than fewer, massed sessions. When doing so, neither of these measures were significantly related to performance.

There are a few possible explanations why we may not have observed a “spacing effect.” First, as explained in the Introduction , we measured spacing potential. It could be that students with high spacing potential may have arranged their studies to mass studying each topic, rather than spacing it out, which would lead us to underestimate the spacing effect. Second, students likely studied again before our cumulative final. This delayed test is where we expected to see the largest effect, and restudying may have masked any spacing effect that did exist. Third, we asked students to directly report their study time, and some may have struggled to remember the exact dates that they studied. While this has the advantage that it results in more sensitive and direct measures of students’ spacing potential than asking students to interpret for themselves whether they binarily spaced their studies or crammed ( Hartwig and Dunlosky, 2012 ; Rodriguez et al. , 2018 ), students who did not remember their study schedules may have reported idealized study schedules with greater spacing, rather than realistic schedules with more cramming ( Susser and McCabe, 2013 ), thus minimizing the expected spacing effect.

Despite the lack of a spacing effect in our data, we certainly do not advocate that students cram their studying, as we find it likely that students who started studying earlier may also have tended to study more. Also, those same students who studied earlier may have felt less stressed and gotten more sleep. In other words, even though our estimation of spacing potential did not capture performance benefits, benefits of spacing for well-being may be multifaceted and not wholly captured by our study.

Distraction (Hypothesis 3)

Consistent with our third hypothesis, we found a negative relationship between distraction while studying and performance. This finding agreed with the few available studies that related distraction during self-directed out-of-class studying and grade, but differs in that our students reported a lower level of distraction than other published studies ( Junco, 2012 ; Junco and Cotten, 2012 ). One possible reason for our low distraction estimate may have been that students were inadvertently underestimating their distraction, as has been reported ( Kraushaar and Novak, 2010 ). In addition, some students may not have been including multitasking as a type of distraction, and this habit of multitasking while studying will likely be difficult to change, as students tend to underestimate how negatively it will affect performance ( Calderwood et al. , 2016 ).

Implications for Instruction

How can we leverage these results to help students change their habits? We present a few ideas of course structural changes that follow from some of the results from this study:

• To encourage students to use more active study strategies, try asking students to turn in the output of the strategy as a low-stakes assignment. For example, to encourage self-explanation, you could ask students to turn in a short video of themselves verbally explaining a concept for credit. To encourage practice quizzing, try to publish or reopen quizzes near exam time ( Walck-Shannon et al. , 2019 ) and ask students to complete them for credit.
• To encourage students to use active study strategies effectively, model those strategies during class. For example, when doing a clicker question, explicitly state your approach to answering the question and self-explain your reasoning out loud. This also gives you an opportunity to add the rationale for why certain strategies are effective or provide advice about carrying them out. In addition to modeling a strategy, remind students to do it often. Simply prompting students to explain their reasoning to their neighbors or themselves during a clicker question helps shifts students’ conversations toward explanation ( Knight et al. , 2013 ).
• To encourage students to stay focused during studying, provide voluntary, structured study sessions. These could include highly structured peer-led team-learning sessions during which students work through a packet of new questions ( Hockings et al. , 2008 ; Snyder et al. , 2015 ) or more relaxed sessions during which students work through problems that have already been provided ( Kudish et al. , 2016 ).

Limitations and Future Directions

There are multiple caveats to these analyses, which may be addressed in future studies. First, our data about study behaviors were self-reported. While we opened the reflection exercise immediately after the exam to mitigate students forgetting their behaviors, some may still have misremembered. Further, some students may not have forgotten, but rather were unable to accurately self-report certain behaviors. As stated earlier, one behavior that is especially prone to this is distraction. But, similarly, we suspect that some students had trouble estimating the percent of study time that they spent using each strategy, while their binary report of whether they used it or not may be more accurate. This may be one reason why the number of active strategies has more explanatory power than the percent of time using an active strategy. Separately, although students were told that we would not analyze their responses until after the semester had ended, some may have conformed their responses to what they thought was desirable. However, there is not strong evidence that students conform their study habit responses to their beliefs about what is effective. For example, Blasiman and colleagues found that, even though students believed rereading was an ineffective strategy, they still reported using it more than other strategies ( Blasiman et al. , 2017 ). Another limitation due to self-reporting is that we lack knowledge of the exact, nuanced behaviors that a student carried out. Thus, a student who chose a strategy that we defined as active—such as “completing problem sets”—may have actually performed more passive behaviors. Specifically, while we did use verbal reminders and delay the release of a key when encouraging students to complete the problem sets and old exams before looking at the answers, some students may have looked up answers prematurely or may have read passively through portions of the key. These more passive behaviors may have underestimated the importance of active strategies. A second limitation is that these data were collected from a course at a selective research-intensive institution and may not be applicable to all student populations. A third limitation is that our analyses are correlational. While we have carefully selected potential confounds, there may be other important confounding variables that we did not account for. Finally, it was beyond the scope of this study to ask whether certain subgroups of students employed different strategies or whether strategies were more or less predictive of performance for different subgroups of students.

Despite these caveats, the main point is clear. Students’ course-specific study habits predict their performance. While many students in our sample reported using effective strategies, some students still had room to improve, especially with their level of distraction. One open question that remains is how we can encourage these students to change their study habits over time.

Supplementary Material

Acknowledgments.

We would like to thank April Bednarski, Kathleen Weston-Hafer, and Barbara Kunkel for their flexibility and feedback on the exam reflection exercises. We would also like to acknowledge Grace Yuan and Ashton Barber for their assistance categorizing exam questions. This research was supported in part by an internal grant titled “Transformational Initiative for Educators in STEM,” which aimed to foster the adoption of evidence-based teaching practices in science classrooms at Washington University in St. Louis.

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FNU Advising 11 Techniques to Improve Your Study Habits

11 Techniques to Improve Your Study Habits

When it comes to developing good study habits, there is a method to all of the madness. The type of study habits that you’ve come to practice in high school may not work so well in college. However, you can certainly build on those practices to make your study habits more disciplined—because you’ll need to! In college, you’ll have more responsibility, but you’ll also have more independence. For first-time college students, this could be a challenge to balance. That’s why Florida National University (FNU) wants to help prepare all of our students for how they can improve their study habits with these 11 helpful techniques.

Study Habit #1. Find a good studying spot.

This is important. You need to be in an environment with little to no distractions—an environment that will aid in keeping you focused on your assignments. The library has always been a reliable place to get some real academic work done, but if you prefer someplace else, just make sure that you’re set up for success. Your university may have other places on campus that will provide you with a nice little studying spot. While cafeterias may be quite busy, there are some university campus cafeterias that tend to have just enough silence for students to study while they grab a bite to eat.

You might get campus fever and decide to venture outside of your university to get some work done. Many students find little coffee shops with Wi-Fi that will let them sit there all day long for a buying customer. Outdoor parks and recreational centers, even the public library might be a nice change of scenery.

Even study lighting is also important. If you want to preserve your eyesight and maximize your time and energy, then choose lighting that will not cause eye strain or fatigue so you can keep your study session effective at any time of the day.

Establish rules when you’re in your study zone. Let people living with you know that when your door is closed, it means you do not want to be disturbed. Try not to respond to phone calls or texts, this will break your concentration and you will lose focus.

Let’s not forget about your home. No matter the size of your apartment or house, we recommend dedicating a little office space just for studying—away from any distractions.

Study Habit #2. Avoid social media.

Speaking of distractions, nothing can sap away your time for a good 20-30 minutes like good old social media! Emails used to be the necessary evil in order to keep life going, but now people are communicating through social media platforms more than email or even talking on the phone! As a result, it’s pretty common to have a browser tab open just for social media. The problem with this is the alerts! As much as you may try to ignore it, you won’t be satisfied until you follow through with the alert—an alert that will most likely require a reply! In all likelihood, it will end up being a conversation that could’ve waited an hour—and now you’ve just added another 20-30 minutes to your study time! Congratulations!

Study Habit #3. Stay Away From Your Phone.

Distractions also include avoiding your phone. The best thing you can do is either put your phone on silent, turn off the alerts and flip it over so that you can’t even SEE them, or just turn the thing off! If it helps, place the phone out of sight so that you’re not even tempted to check your messages. The world can wait. Your education is a priority and anyone who’s in your circle of friends should understand this. If you are absolutely adamant about keeping your phone nearby in case of an emergency, then allow yourself some study breaks so that you can dedicate a certain amount of time just for checking your alerts and messages.

Study Habit #4. No Willpower? Enlist the Help of an App.

Apps like Focus Booster and AntiSocial have your back!

AntiSocial blocks your access to a selection of websites with a timer that you select.

Focus Booster is a mobile phone app that relies on the Pomodoro Technique, where you work intensively for 25 minutes and then you break for five minutes. The app also includes productivity reports and revenue charts.

Study Habit #5. Take a break and take care of yourself.

Talking a little more about taking breaks, this really shouldn’t be an option. College is hard work, and just like any other kind of job, you deserve a break. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Working until the wee hours of the morning to complete an assignment might be great for that class, but it’s not for you or other academic courses. You MUST take care of yourself in order to give your academic career the attention it deserves. You’re paying to get an education—to learn. Running yourself into the ground without allowing time for your body and mind to rest is unacceptable.

• Ophthalmologists will warn you that you need to remember to blink when working on a computer screen to save your sight. Give your eyes a rest by gazing into the horizon, preferably out of a window with natural light. Did you know that your eyes need exercise, too? Especially in today’s world where we are reading everything at such close distances. Keep your head in a neutral position and with just your eyeballs, look at the ceiling or a tree and try to focus. Go from corner to corner, focusing up, then do the same for the floor. Roll your eyes.
• Your hands also need a break: learn to use the mouse with your other hand, put the keyboard in the most comfortable position, which is actually on your lap. Take a moment to stretch your wrists and fingers.
• Blueberries

And don’t forget to sleep and reboot!

Study Habit #6. Organize lectures notes.

For some students, the best way to organize notes is to ask if you can record your professors’ lectures for a better understanding of the lesson. The best way to do this is to transcribe the recorded lecture notes. This way, you can rewind what you didn’t understand. It also behooves you to revisit those notes—while the material is fresh in your mind and rewrite them in a style that’s more legible and review-friendly. On the day of the exam, you’ll be glad you did.

Fact: it has been proven that information retention is higher when you go over your notes and repeat the lesson after the class is over. Rewriting your lecture notes is going to be one of the most brilliant study techniques to practice. Rewriting will help you remember the context better and reorganizing them in nice outline forces you to comprehend the lesson.

Study Habit #7. Join or create a study group.

Finding fellow students who are struggling to understand the coursework can be comforting. However, joining or creating a study group can be helpful in many ways.  Guaranteed someone in your study group can help you through a certain assignment you’re struggling with and you’ll be able to do the same. It’s all about helping each other succeed!

Study Habit #8. Aromatherapy, plants and music.

Science is always tinkering with nature, but in this case, in a simple way, only studying the effects of essential oils and plants on concentration, focus, and memory.

Some studies have shown that lavender has a good effect on memory, however, others have shown that its effect is negligible and in fact, lavender oil and teas are used to relax the body in preparation for sleep. So lavender may calm and center yourself, but for focus, sandalwood and frankincense (also known as Boswellia) have shown much more promising results in most studies.

Plants, in general, have a natural, comforting effect and in their presence, humans tend to have a higher pain tolerance and faster recoveries from hospitalizations. Music, also improves brain function, can help you focus and also eases the pain. Learn more about the benefits of studying with music.

Study Habit #9. Leave time for the last-minute review.

Here are where well-organized lecture notes come into play. Always, always leave time for the last-minute review. Here, we’re exercising the tried and true memory game. This is a technique that most students apply as one study habit. That’s just impossible for the amount of college work you’ll be taking on, but it can work quite well as a last-minute review—only if you have good notes!

Better still, ff you can pair reviewing your notes with a good night’s sleep, then you will significantly improve your ability to retain more information. Just know that studying when you’re sleepy is ineffective. If your body is telling you that you’re tired, then have a nap or go to bed early. A good night’s sleep is another technique to use that will help you understand and remember information better.

If you’re finding that you are getting stressed out or tired, reflect back on your study schedule and priorities. Make sure that you have dedicated time for rest and de-stressing activities as well.

Study Habit #10. Understand Your Best Learning Style

It’s important to know that there are many different styles of learning and each person will retain information better in different ways.

• Visual learners who learn best when pictures, images, and spatial understanding is used.
• Auditory learners who prefer using music, sounds or both.
• Kinesthetic learners actually use a more physical style of learning through using the body, sense of touch and hands.
• Logical learners need to use reasoning, logic, and systems.
• Verbal learners will prefer using words in writing and speech.
• Social learners will thrive in learning with other people or in groups.
• Solitary learners are able to learn best when alone.

Think about which style of learning works best for you, and it will help you determine how to study, where to study when to study and other important factors like what study aids you should use and be aware of, and knowing what things may distract you while you are trying to study.

Study Habit #11. Make Study Time a Part of Your Daily Routine

If cramming all of your study time into a few long days isn’t working for you then it’s time to try something new and less stressful. What you do every day is more important than what you do occasionally, so make time for studying every single day, with or without exams coming up.

Consistency is key and once you start getting into good study habits, so make it a routine that you will be able to maintain throughout the school year.

When it becomes part of your schedule, you don’t need to find the time, you’ve made time for your study sessions each month. Don’t forget to also check your schedule for the week or month, and consider your personal commitments: chores, must-attend activities, and appointments. All you need to do now is to stay committed to your new study schedule.

Make studying your priority and place these sessions when you’re at your peak performance times to make them extra effective. Some people work best in the mornings, and others, at night. Experiment with this and don’t assume that because you wake early you should study early, but instead try morning, noon, and night to see which is best.

FNU Want You To Succeed!

Try to learn and not just memorize and remember, keep it simple. Don’t try to get fancy with your study notes. They are for your eyes only and won’t be graded. The goal is to help you get a high-scoring grade. We hope this quick checklist will alleviate some anxiety you might have for managing college work. If you have questions about this or any of our degree programs, contact an FNU advisor at any of our campus locations today!

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Home / Essay Samples / Education / Study / Building Better Habits: A Guide to Improving Study Skills

Building Better Habits: A Guide to Improving Study Skills

• Category: Life , Education
• Topic: Life Lesson , Student , Study

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Choose the Right Time

Have a study partner, take a break in between study sessions, review what you learn, ask teachers’ for assistance.

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