Psychology Chapter on Learning Techniques

Generation Effect

• Active creation of material (e.g., generating questions) strengthens encoding and long-term retrieval.
• Testing yourself is a form of generation, requiring active involvement.
• Creating your own test questions is as effective as using provided questions.
• Students who created questions, answered questions, or did neither— creating questions and answering them performed equally well.

Retrieval Practice and Testing Effect

• Repeated testing on studied material improves memory retention.
• Self-testing reveals knowledge gaps and boosts later recall.
• Many students wrongly believe reviewing is more effective than self-testing, but testing enhances learning.

Organization

• Organizing material creates connections, making it more meaningful and improving encoding.
• Organizing techniques include creating trees, outlines, and lists, grouping similar concepts together.
• Organization reduces memory load by chunking information into larger, more meaningful units.
• A perceptual example: recognizing a pattern like a dalmatian simplifies description and recall.

Spaced Repetition and Breaks

• Short, spaced study sessions with breaks are more effective than long, continuous study sessions for better retention.
• The spacing effect refers to the advantage of short, spaced study sessions.
• Adequate sleep after learning enhances consolidation (a process that strengthens memory).

Avoiding Illusions of Learning

• Some study techniques might seem effective but aren't (e.g., rereading).
• Rereading material leads to increased fluency (ease of reading), creating an illusion of learning—but not better memory.
• Familiarity effect: repeated reading creates familiarity that is often mistaken for understanding.
• Highlighting material during initial reading is a common but ineffective technique.