Introduction
Psychology allows for answering many questions about human development in general and learning in particular. In the educational context, the use of learning strategies is essential for students’ attainment. However, students often use ineffective strategies, which is why it is relevant to apply psychological evidence to justify the effectiveness of particular strategies to accelerate learning and product knowledge and skill cultivation. In this paper, observation, mnemonics, highlighting, and practice testing will be evaluated for their effectiveness as learning strategies. Since observation and highlighting are the least effective, using mnemonics and practice testing is encouraged for students to maximize their learning potential in a time- and effort-efficient manner.
Textbook Ineffective Strategy
One of the ineffective learning strategies used by college students is observational learning. According to Licht et al. (2019), Alfred Bandura’s Bobo doll experiment demonstrated that children learn aggressive behavior after observing it in adults. While observational learning is effective in a social context, it might not benefit all learning settings and all students’ needs due to the lack of practical involvement in mere observation of others’ actions. Indeed, it is essential to integrate additional learning strategies after observation to ensure the sustained effect of the learned material.
Textbook Effective Strategy
One of the strategies applied by students for effective learning is using mnemonics when memorizing large volumes of information. Indeed, according to Licht et al. (2019), due to the effects, people are most likely to remember the beginning and the end of the list of ideas they are exposed to. Therefore, to memorize large volumes of information that are not logically constructed, mnemonics are considered an effective strategy since it allows for structuring unrelated data and memorizing it.
Article Ineffective Strategy
One of the ineffective strategies of learning used by students is highlighting when studying a text. Indeed, according to the study conducted by Dunlosky et al. (2013), highlighting has been assessed as the lowest utility level due to the limited benefits this learning technique produces. This technique implies that a student uses a marker to underline the passages or ideas in a text that seem to be important. However, mere highlighting of key concepts in the text does not help cultivate sustained knowledge. Moreover, this strategy does not fit all learning settings or requirements due to its focus on text studying only, which is why this approach should be substituted by more effective ones directed at the practical use of knowledge.
Article Effective Strategy
An effective strategy of learning that benefits most students and in most conditions is practice testing. This technique implies recalling newly obtained information after received; for example, a student watches an educational video and then answers the questions or retells what they saw. Such a technique was assessed as having a high utility level among diverse student populations and for different learning purposes, as Dunlosky et al. (2013) demonstrated. Thus, practice testing is encouraged to be used for achieving effective studying results.
Conclusion
In summation, this paper has covered examples of learning strategies depending on their effectiveness for students’ studies. In particular, observational learning and highlighting have been assessed as ineffective study strategies due to their limited benefits for a diverse population of learners. Moreover, the mere use of these strategies in isolation does not produce the most desired outcome for knowledge accumulation for a long time. On the contrary, mnemonics and practice testing were identified as effective strategies due to their universal application for different students and the endured effect on skill and knowledge development.
References
Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58.
Licht, D., Hull, M., & Ballantyne, C. (2019). Scientific American: Presenting psychology (3rd ed.). Worth Publishers.