Self-testing may prove best study technique

In a recent study published in Science magazine, Purdue University’s Jeffrey Karpicke and Janell Blunt suggested that students who “learn and recall” perform better on tests than those who use elaborate learning strategies such as concept-mapping. Some University faculty members, however, questioned the validity of the study’s findings about the best techniques for studying and testing.

In two experiments, a total of 200 students read several paragraphs on various scientific topics. Half of the participants were asked to make a concept map with the information while the others spent 10 minutes writing what they recalled without looking at the articles. When tested a week later, the second group retained 50 percent more information.

In response to the study, Sam Wang, an associate professor in the neuroscience department, said that Karpicke’s findings have a “plausible foundation” in neuroscience and that he applies this principle by giving students a short quiz at the start of his NEU 101: Neuroscience and Everyday Life classes.

“The idea is to get students to actively recall subject matter,” Wang said in an e-mail. It is “unusual” for college-level classes to frequently quiz students but the response has been positive, he added.

However, not all members of the University community agreed with the study’s findings.

Carol Porter, the director of the University’s McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning, and Nic Voge, McGraw’s associate director, questioned the study’s assessment criteria and said that it was misleading.

“What do you mean by retrieval? Once you’ve taken information in, hopefully it has become connected to other information you know,” Porter said.

“The human mind doesn’t act like a computer hard-drive,” Voge added.

Voge also questioned whether the students in the study had been correctly taught concept-mapping, adding that poorly implemented study strategies do not mean that the strategies themselves are ineffective.

Porter and Voge stressed the importance of practicing discipline-specific learning strategies, noting that effective study strategies are distinct even between sub-disciplines such as general chemistry and organic chemistry. They added that the most important thing was to teach students how to adapt to the specific needs of a course.

Voge also suggested the need for more inclusive criteria for assessing learning and student performance.

“Are students being asked the kinds and variety of questions that give a sense of what we’re trying to achieve at Princeton? I think that would be a wonderful way to assess,” he said. “What does the course value? What are the objectives? The kinds of thinking? Those should be good guidelines for students about what kinds of thinking to practice, not just for test preparation but for their life.”

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Associate Dean of Undergraduate Affairs for the Engineering School Peter Bogucki said in an e-mail that, for many professors, teaching methods are based on experience rather than scientific studies or literature.

“My personal sense is that faculty members do not follow the academic literature on educational psychology and instead devise methods of assessment that indicate how students are learning the course material and the range of variability in how students are mastering the subject, based on their past experience with assessment exercises and conversations with fellow faculty members about what works and what doesn’t,” he explained.

Several students also disagreed with the study’s findings, saying they thought humanities classes should not be based on simple learn-and-recall tests.

Ting-Fung Chan ’12 suggested that in-class exams are a poor way to test students in reading-intensive classes such as history.

“They are generally a test of memorization skills,” Chan said in an e-mail. “Generally speaking one can get a very good score just by taking detailed notes in lecture, memorizing these notes and regurgitating them in the exam. In other words, there is little opportunity for the student to demonstrate research or analytical abilities, which are far more important for the effective understanding of history.”

Ultimately, Porter said, there is an aspect of learning that is indefinable.

“We hope that students leave a course feeling that it changed their way of seeing the world,” she explained. “How do you measure that?”