Here’s why you (and I) have been studying the wrong way all this time - part 1
Have you ever studied hard for a test, spending all your evenings on it, feeling prepared, just to fail it spectacularly?
Have you ever been told to re-read your lessons to learn it better?
Have you ever been told after a failed test that you obviously didn’t learn despite you knowing you definitely did?
If so, I’m very sorry, it means school has failed you on something it was supposed to teach you: how to learn. And really, the fault isn’t yours.
Fasten your seatbelts my friends, we’re going on an adventure to explain why school sucks at its own fucking job!
First of all, a little experiment by Tulving. We have 2 groups and we ask them to simply read 6 times a list of 22 words. Then, we give Group 1 the same list and ask them this time to remember as many words as possible. With Group 2, same task but it’s not the same list as before.
Question time: which group will do better? Group 1 with the list they have already read 6 times, or Group 2 with a totally new list?
I can guess you’re probably telling me Group 1, right?
Well. Actually, there is no difference at all between the groups. Nothing, nada. Reading the words 6 times before didn’t give any advantage to Group 1.
What is this witchcraft, I hear you say?
Let me introduce you to the biggest misconception of our school life: reading your lesson over and over won’t help you at all.
How is that possible? Well, there’s a concept we all heard countless time, but that was never explained correctly: effort. To learn something, you need to make efforts. I’m not saying you’re not being serious when reading your lesson, not at all.
The thing is, reading is by now is a reflex for you, it doesn’t require a lot of efforts. Do you remember how hard it was to read when you were a child, or have you seen a young child trying to read? Every word is a battle, to the point that sometimes, they have finished reading but can’t remember what they read: all of their attention was on how to pronounce this group of letters, not on what they were saying.
For us, adults, reading is not something very complicated. It became a reflex, so now our attention isn’t on how to read, but on what we read. It sounds like a good thing, right? It is, but not when it comes to learning.
The action of reading isn’t complicated, and so you don’t have to be involved that much. You’re reading it, you’re understanding it; but when are you making the effort to memorize it? That’s where the problem is: reading is mostly passive, whereas learning is active.
You probably already encountered this paradox, though: the more you read your lesson, the more familiar it feels. You’re reading it and you’re like “Yeah, I remember that, and that too, and this after too”. But once in front of your exam: nothing. Or at least, not enough. This familiar feeling is just that: a feeling. Your brain is only telling you “Yeah, I already read that”, but we mistake it for “I already learned that”.
The difference is quite important, but we aren’t necessarily aware of it. So when teachers are telling us “You didn’t study”, we’re offended because we’re certain we did. Yes, we did work; but we didn’t in the right way.
Another study to prove my point (Roedinger & Karpicke, 2006):
Once again, 2 groups. My question would be: when asked to remember as much info as possible in a text, who would win?
Group 1, with 4 sessions of 5 minutes to read the text?
Or Group 2, with 5 minutes to read it and then without the text, 3 separate sessions of 5 minutes to write down as many things they can remember (without any correction from the examiners of course)?
This time, you already know where I’m going. But our instinct tells us “Obviously Group 1, they had more time!”. Which is technically true. 5 minutes after the end of that experiment, when we ask each group what they remember, Group 1 takes the lead. They get around 85% of the notions from the text, while Group 2 gets 70%. It isn’t much but it’s indeed better.
Which is great. But that’s 5 minutes after learning.
If we meet with them again 1 week later, and ask again what they do remember, Group 1 falls at barely 40% of the notions, not even half of what they learned. What about Group 2, you ask? They’re at 60%, which is very good!
The funny thing is, if asked, Group 1 will tell you how confident they feel about what they remember and that they will nail the test, while Group 2 will be saying they don’t remember a lot. Because once again, Group 1 has this feeling of familiarity about the text.
But then why is Group 2 so much better after a week?
It’s about effort.
The 5 minutes they spent reading didn’t require a lot of efforts. They understood what was written, maybe had enough time to read it a few times. Then they didn’t have the text anymore, but we asked them to write down what they remember. Once. Twice. Thrice.
During those 3 sessions, they had to make efforts. Efforts to search in their memory for what they had read. And this, contrary to reading, isn’t really easy and definitely isn’t passive.
“What did I read?” they asked themselves in front of this blank page, the text long gone. “Wait, I almost forgot this! And didn’t they talk about something else? Wait, what was it?… Oh!”
By doing so, they re-activated neurons, creating paths, reinforcing them. They did that 3 times. So their brain was like “Wait, we searched for that info multiple times, it must be important!”
Then what about Group 1, you wonder? They had 4 sessions to read it! Didn’t their brain also realize it was important?
Your brain’s goal is to automate things you need. Because if those things are automated, you don’t have to focus on them anymore, you don’t have to spend all your energy on it.
Do you remember when you learned how to ride a bike? It was hard, you fell often, but now you don’t have to think about; that’s because your brain was like “Shit, this is giving us a hard time. This is a problem, because if it takes all of our attention to just stay on the bike, we won’t be able to avoid obstacle or anything.” The solution to that is making ‘staying on the bike’ a reflex, something you know so much you don’t have to reinforce it anymore.
With Group 1, reading that text wasn’t hard. Their brain was like “meh, no problem, it doesn’t require more of my help”. If it isn’t problematic, no need for trying to automate it or make it easier.
But for Group 2, it was harder. Making the effort to try to remember what they read was very consuming in time, attention and energy. Their brain HAD to do something so it would become easier: it learned, and it learned for a longer time. Because of the repetition of that effort, because this difficulty kept appearing and being annoying in a way, their brain realized they needed to know that. Just like how you learned your phone number, your address,… You searched for it multiple times, you used it multiple times; now you don’t need to re-learn it, it’s there to stay.
So Group 1 spent 20 minutes reading a text, just to remember it for a day or two.
Group 2 also spent 20 minutes, but 5 for reading, and 15 to test themselves, and it lasted way more than a week.
Both groups did work. But one of them is obviously more efficient.
You want to learn efficiently? Leave your notes aside, and make the effort to try to remember it, even if it’s imperfect. No: especially if it’s imperfect.
Yes, I know, it seems counterintuitive. However it works incredibly well!
But that will be for a part 2…
