Pro Tip: Distributed Practice Yields Better Results
Hey Tumblr fam! I wanted to share with you all some meaningful information from psych that could potentially affect your current study habits. Please take the time to read.
Our memory is comprised of three different phases:
encoding (getting the information into our brain)
storage (retaining the information)
retrieval (pulling the information back out)
If we want to remember anything, we must have these three phases of memory. Okay. Now we can get down to the nitty-gritty:
When we want to retain information, we do so more efficiently if our encoding is distributed over time. In other words, if we take in information over certain, small chunks of time (let’s say every other 45 minutes) instead of going for a massive cram session (maybe a 3-hour span of “pure” studying), we are more likely to retain information and be able to recall it later. This, my friends, is called distributed practice. Although cram sessions still allow you to learn information, it doesn’t really help keep information in your head for long periods of time. Rather, cram sessions only help keep information for a very short period of time. (Hey, you learn quickly, you forget quickly. Simple as that.)
To engage in distributed practice, you can perform repeated self-testing. Pretty self-explanatory - just open up that textbook of yours and do some practice problems over and over. Repeated self-testing allows you to practice retrieving all that learned information from your head. Practicing retrieval is key to memory because if we are unable to retrieve stored information, what use is that information to us then? Forgetting is caused by retrieval failure and to keep that from happening, repeated self-testing can be done. (Keep in mind, practicing retrieval is different from re-reading the same information over and over.)
With that said, I think it would be in your best interest to definitely plan out a study schedule and study for short periods of time rather than long periods.
Source (I don’t know how to properly make a hanging indent here):
Myers, David G., and C. Nathan DeWall. Psychology. New York: Worth Publishers, 2015. Print.
Thanks for reading Tumblr fam!
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