Five Popular Study Strategies: Their Pitfalls and Optimal Implementations

Abstract

Researchers’ and educators’ enthusiasm in applying cognitive principles to enhance educational practices has become more evident. Several published reviews have suggested that some potent strategies can help students learn more efficaciously. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, students do not report frequent reliance on these empirically supported techniques. In the present review, we take a novel approach, identifying study strategies for which students have strong preferences and assessing whether these preferred strategies have any merit given existing empirical evidence from the cognitive and educational literatures. Furthermore, we provide concrete recommendations for students, instructors, and psychologists. For students, we identify common pitfalls and tips for optimal implementation for each study strategy. For instructors, we provide recommendations for how they can assist students to more optimally implement these study strategies. For psychologists, we highlight promising avenues of research to help augment these study strategies.