Last week, I was eating dinner with some friends. One friend shared his dream, in which he was taking a high school exam and was just so nervous about thinking how he didn’t study and hence wouldn’t pass.

That gave us all a good chuckle – we are all adults way beyond our high school years, after all – but it also made us realize that our experiences of studying and completing examinations have some similarities, whether in real life or the occasional flashback dream. One of them even commented that it’s likely an experience younger generations might relate to, noting how her teenage nephew goes about school nowadays.

Granted, studying, learning, and examinations can trigger emotions, and people have different attitudes and motivations related to studying. In addition, we all tend to use different study methods, some of which may be more efficient than others.

So, as the conversation progressed from a dreamy anecdote to an evidence-hungry discussion, we wondered what cognitive science says about the ways we study and the outcomes we get from it. Unable to infer from scratch, the Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications journal – published by the Psychonomic Society – came to the rescue!

In their recent paper, “Which learning techniques supported by cognitive research do students use at secondary school? Prevalence and associations with students’ beliefs and achievement,” Héctor Ruiz‑Martín, Fernando Blanco, and Marta Ferrero (pictured below) describe insightful results on how different learning techniques relate to students’ performance, the way they think about studying, and their motivations to do it.

Ways to study

We all tend to study in different ways. The effectiveness of some of those ways is backed by cognitive science, whereas the effectiveness of other commonly used techniques is not.

With this in mind, the researchers were interested in assessing to which extent students used study techniques backed up by cognitive science research and comparing them with the extent of their use of unsupported techniques. To do so, they designed an instrument to survey the use of the following study techniques in a diverse sample, including thousands of secondary-level students (i.e., grades 7^th to 12^th):

• Study session spacing: Learning is more durable when sessions are distributed over time rather than in a single massive session (the night before the exam, anyone?).
• High elaboration techniques: Engaging in cognitive effort to create connections and organize the new knowledge in relation to what is already known.
• Low-elaboration techniques: Behaviors intended to expose or memorize the content with a minimum level of cognitive elaboration, such as rote learning, highlighting/copying, and re-reading.
• Retrieval practice: Attempting to retrieve the learned content from memory (for example, reciting learned materials, trying to teach the content to others, etc.).
• Cognitive load management: Managing cognitive load unrelated to the study material, such as attempting to study in a quiet environment rather than with background music, videos, or other irrelevant stimulation.

Interestingly, certain variations of techniques could represent several categories; for example, a retrieval practice involving teaching the content to others can simultaneously be considered to require high cognitive elaboration, whereas one centered on reciting memorized material would likely reflect rote learning.

Ways to think about studying

Not only do we study differently, but we also tend to think and feel differently about why we study and what influences our results (such as grades and learning).

The researchers assessed the following beliefs and attitudes of students toward learning:

• Self-efficacy: Student’s confidence in their ability to successfully complete school tasks and assignments.
• Learning goals: Students’ interest in wanting to learn what they are taught.
• Performance goals: Students’ interest in getting good grades.
• Control Beliefs: The extent to which students believe their success in school depends on causes they can control, such as effort or study techniques.
• Growth mindset: The degree to which students think the ability to achieve in school is malleable.
• Examination anxiety: Perceived level of stress when facing examinations.

Putting it all together

At the end of the school year, the researchers collected grades for students who had completed the abovementioned surveys.

This gave them the final ingredient to put together into their data analysis, which intended to understand and discover the multiple relations into how we study (the study techniques), how we think about it (beliefs and attitudes), and school achievement (data on students’ grades).

As you can imagine, there are various results and ways to analyze this data, so we will share a summary.

In the words of the authors:

“Most of the learning strategies supported by research, such as elaboration (trying to understand), retrieval practice (self-assessment), and avoiding superfluous cognitive load (i.e. studying in silence) showed a relevant correlation with achievement and self-efficacy. In addition, they exhibited higher correlations with growth-mindset, control beliefs, and learning goals (focusing on learning, not just grades) than not-supported strategies. As a curiosity, studying while listening to music showed a negative correlation with achievement.”

Indeed, the following figure illustrates how the research-supported learning strategies (top and middle panels) show significant correlations with students’ grades, whereas the unsupported strategy does not (bottom panel).

We invite you to review the full range of analyses described in the featured paper to explore the multiple relationships between study techniques, beliefs, attitudes, and school achievement more deeply.

Who knows, maybe you can get good ideas on how to optimize your study techniques,  give some recommendations to students you know (you may also want to check out our Digital Event on useful study strategies), or, if you’re like my friend, at least have a concealed ace below your sleeve for the next time that you get a school-themed nightmare.

Psychonomic Society’s article featured in this post:

Ruiz-Martín, H., Blanco, F. & Ferrero, M. (2024) Which learning techniques supported by cognitive research do students use at secondary school? Prevalence and associations with students’ beliefs and achievement. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications 9, (44). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-024-00567-5