L11 Revision Strategies

Who did this systematic review of

Dunlosky et al., 2013

List the low/ moderate/ high-efficacy strategies

Low:

Summarisation; Highlighting/ Underlining; Re-reading; Keyword mnemonic

Moderate:

Elaborative interrogation; Interleaving

High:

Practice testing; Distributed practice

Top strategies:

Retrieving & generating; Spacing & interleaving; Variability & successive relearning

Why are low utility strategies low?

• Summary – 1. ppl vary in their ability to effectively summarise, require training (impractical); 2. depends on whether with/ without notes → may copy instead of properly process/ benefit from retrieval but miss important info

• Highlighting – 1. won’t affect rote memory for factual recall but impair deep processing (e.g., for inference questions), bcs ppl may focus on isolated details (shallow processing) at the expense of understanding the deeper meanings (connected ideas & understanding their meanings in broader contexts); 2. ppl vary in their ability to identify the key points

• Re-reading – provides some benefits (esp. when spaced), yet is limited due to diminishing returns

• Keyword – can improve memory by promoting deeper, more elaborative encoding (connecting new info to sth familiar), but benefits tend to be inconsistent: 1. Many concepts are not keyword/ imagery-friendly; 2. time-consuming (not cost-effective); 3. gains rarely persist over an extended period

Why is interleaving only moderate utility?

Strength:

• Naturally produce spacing

• Creates ‘discriminative contrast’ → helpful for studying domains that involve comparing & contrasting (e.g., categorical learning, maths problems)

Weakness

• Relatively small literature, with some null effects (esp. when learners lack basic proficiency before interleaving)

• *Require basic proficiency before interleaving

How does distributed practice benefit learning?

It spaces out study sessions over a longer period, which is more effective for long-term retention

• Spacing effect

• Lag effect: longer gaps btw sessions → better memory than short gaps

It is important to align study methods with the nature of the material rather than personal preferences.