By Alexis Charlton
To all college students, especially freshmen, are you tired of blanking on tests? Are you tired of studying for hours and not remembering your content? I have something to tell you, it’s not how long or how hard you study, it is how you study. How would it feel to show up to a test and feel more confident than ever? How would you feel about sleeping peacefully the night before a test? I can give you the answer on how to feel confident and calm before you show up to a test. Once again, it is not about how long you study, it is all about how you encode the information you study.
Encoding
Encoding is how you process the information you are learning and put it into your memory. There are three main ways that information gets encoded. The first main way is visually. The second main way is acoustic. Last but not least, the third main way is semantic. Semantic encoding is the deepest level of processing. When you semantically encode information you put a meaning behind it or relate it to something meaningful.
Levels of Processing Theory
Memory is many times classified into three categories: sensory stores, short-term memory, and long-term memory. Understanding how people transfer information to their long-term memory has been something people have researched for years. The levels of Processing Theory were first proposed by Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart in 1972. In their theory, their main point is that memory is more about the depth of processing. There is both shallow and deep processing. When you use shallow processing you do not pay much attention to the details and it does not require a lot of effort, but when you deep process information you pay close attention to it and it holds a lot of meaning to you. Many times with deep processing you relate its meaning to something else important to you. When you deep process information you understand and retain it better than when you shallow process information. In order to test this theory, Fergus Craik and Endel Tulving did an experiment. In this experiment, they told a group of participants a set of words and then followed it up with three questions. The three questions they asked were intended to make the participants have different levels of processing. The first question was about physical features which was supposed to create shallow processing. The second question was about rhyming which was supposed to create deeper processing. And the third question was to fill in the blanks which was intended to create the deepest processing. After the three questions, the participants were asked to recall the words they were given at the beginning of the experiment. The level of processing theory indicates that when you are asked structural questions you are using shallow processing, and when you are asked phonetic questions you are processing slightly deeper, but when you are asked semantic questions you are using the deepest level of processing. The results showed that the deeper processing resulted in the participants recalling the words better.
Using deep processing in your day to day life
Many people use deep processing in their day-to-day lives but do not know how to apply it while studying and doing schoolwork. When you reword and relay information in your own words to other people that is an example of deep processing. Another example people do multiple times a day is mental imagery. When you imagine things visually in your head that is another example of using deep processing without realizing it.
Method of Loci
What is the method of loci you might ask? In order to understand the method of loci, we will start by understanding what the word itself means. “Loci” stands for locations. So, when you use the method of loci you are associating information with locations and areas you are familiar with so when you need to recall that information you use that association to help you. The method of loci is a mnemonic memory strategy. A mnemonic memory strategy is intended to help improve your memory. To go more into detail, when you use the method of loci, you imagine yourself in a room you are familiar with. After you learn new information, you imagine yourself placing that new information down in that room. When it comes time for you to remember that information you then imagine yourself picking up that information in the familiar room you placed it in. Researchers have shown the method of loci makes it easier to both learn and remember new information. The method of loci is another form of deep processing.
Application
Now that you understand what levels of processing are, you might wonder how you can use that to your benefit as you have now entered your college years. There are so many ways you can use deep processing to help you in college but to avoid overwhelming new college students, we will talk about the ones I believe are the most beneficial. When you are learning something new in class, relate it to personal experiences you have had. When you relate new classroom content to your own personal experiences you are able to recall and remember it better. As we talked about earlier, create mental images in your head. When you create that visual image in your head you are processing that information deeper, so you can retain it better. When you are able to relate new information to your own life and make it some sort of way special to you, you will be able to understand it and learn it better. In college, you will spend hours taking notes. When you take notes, be creative with them and give them details and make them fun. Do not just take notes in class then leave and do nothing. Dive deeper into your content on your own by doing your own research, making your own visuals, and coming up with questions to ask to help improve your understanding. I am by no means implying that you do not study, I am trying to show you how to study more effectively. As a freshman understanding the levels of processing and learning how to apply them to my studies would have been beneficial. Take the information I have provided and run!
References:
- Eugen Bruce Goldstein. (2011). Cognitive psychology. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
- Heerema, Esther. “How to Improve Your Memory by Using the Method of Loci.” Verywell Health, 21 Apr. 2022, www.verywellhealth.com/will-the-method-of-loci-mnemonic-improve-your-memory-98411#:~:text=The%20method%20of%20loci%20is%20a%20mnemonic%20memory%20strategy%20to.
- McLeod, S. (2013). Memory, encoding storage and retrieval | simply psychology. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/memory.html
- McLeod, S. (2007). Levels of Processing | Simply Psychology. Www.simplypsychology.org. https://www.simplypsychology.org/levelsofprocessing.html#:~:text=The%20levels%20of%20processing%20model
- Qureshi, A., Rizvi, F., Syed, A., Shahid, A., & Manzoor, H. (2014). The method of loci as a mnemonic device to facilitate learning in endocrinology leads to improvement in student performance as measured by assessments. Advances in Physiology Education, 38(2), 140–144. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00092.2013