Stop Reading, Start Retrieving

By Jacob Lamprecht

Studying. Most all college students will attempt to study at some point in their college careers. Though variations exist from student to student, oftentimes the same pattern emerges in our studying. First, we find a comfy spot. Then, to continue creating that nice study environment, we put on some music. But not that song, it doesn’t fit my mood right now, so I’ll skip it. Upon finding the right mood for studying, we check our social media to see if anything has happened in the last few moments since we began studying. When we finally get to the point in our studying where we actually open our notes or textbook most follow through with the same procedure. We look at our notes. And then look at them again. Rereading and rereading and rereading to shove that knowledge into our brain. Though this approach feels fulfilling and is easy enough to do once we get past the distractions, research has shown rereading to have little effect upon our eventual test scores (1).