Teaching Students to Study More Effectively: Lessons Learned from an Empirical Comparison of a Study Tips Presentation and a Review Article

ABSTRACT

We compared the effectiveness of a “Study Smarter, Not Harder” presentation to spending an equivalent amount of time reading an article: “Optimizing Learning in College.” One-hundred-sixty undergraduate students participated. The presentation and article yielded comparable ratings of study tip effectiveness, helpfulness, and usage. Article readers better discriminated between effective versus ineffective and helpful versus unhelpful strategies. Presentation attendees increased their use of all study strategies, whereas article readers only increased their use of recommended study tips. Results highlight advantages of reading the article over attending this presentation and suggest ways to more effectively teach students to study smarter, not harder.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic success
• learning sciences
• study skills instruction
• undergraduate student learning

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the contributions of Madison Eaton who assisted with data collection. We would also like to acknowledge the staff of the Learning Resource Center, particularly Riki Lawrence, Jen Mann and Janice Ruston, who helped to encourage students to attend the study tips sessions that formed the basis of this research.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

The dataset associated with this study is available from the corresponding author upon request.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tara T. Lineweaver

Tara T. Lineweaver is a Professor of Psychology and the Director of the Neuroscience minor at Butler University. A Butler University alumna with Bachelor’s degrees in Arts Administration and Psychology, Dr. Lineweaver earned her Master’s Degree in Experimental Psychology from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Neuropsychology from the San Diego State University/University of California, San Diego joint doctoral program, after completing an internship at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Postdoctoral training and two years on staff at the Cleveland Clinic preceded her return to Butler in 2003. Her expertise includes healthy aging, neurodegenerative disorders, epilepsy, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. A passionate advocate for undergraduate research, Dr. Lineweaver invites fifteen or more students to collaborate with her on research in her lab each year and also serves as the Editor for the Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research. She enjoys teaching Biological Bases of Behavior, Advanced Applied Neuroscience and several interdisciplinary co-taught core curriculum courses. She has risen to the rank of full professor at Butler, having had the amazing opportunity to focus her career on serving the university and the students she loves.

Amanda C. G. Hall

Amanda C. G. Hall is a Professor of Psychology and the Director of Faculty Development at Butler University. She earned her B.A. in Psychology from Gettysburg College (Gettysburg, PA), her M.A. in Experimental Psychology from Towson University (Towson, MD), and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA). Dr. Hall studies the accuracy of the human memory system and the relationship between confidence and accuracy in memory. Her research focuses on what people believe about their memories and how those beliefs can be changed so as to be more accurate. One line of her research focuses on students and how to maximize their learning in class and outside of class. In addition, she is interested in how factors such as mood and emotion can impact our ability to monitor the contextual details of our memories. Dr. Hall collaborates with undergraduate students in all of her research projects and she enjoys developing new research ideas based on the ideas and insights of her students.

Hanna Throgmorton

Hanna Throgmorton earned her B.A. degree in Psychology with a minor in Neuroscience from Butler University in 2018. She was actively involved in two primary research labs during her time at Butler, one with Dr. Tara Lineweaver and one with Dr. Ali O’Malley. Ms. Throgmorton assisted with numerous research projects, but primarily focused her efforts around student study habits and Butler’s Music in Long-Term Care study. She has since transitioned into a role focused on identifying optimal career opportunities for individuals and providing training and resources to help them grow in desired skill sets, setting them up for success in new career paths.

Sean M. Callahan

Sean M. Callahan earned Bachelor’s degrees in both Biology and Chemistry from Butler University in 2020. During his time at Butler, he was actively involved in Dr. Lineweaver’s lab, where he studied the effects of music on sundowning symptoms in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. He was also involved in virology research through the Biology department. He studied the structure and growth mechanics of mouse hepatitis virus, a noninfectious coronavirus, and he coauthored a review paper on the variations in clinical and laboratory strains of respiratory syncytial virus. Mr. Callahan is currently working on his osteopathic medical degree from the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine (CCOM). During his first year at CCOM, he was involved in logistics and vaccine administration for the Johnson and Johnson vaccine trial at Great Lakes Clinical Trials in Chicago, IL. He currently studies the effects of carcinogens and high fat diets on mouse lung tissue and is very interested in the medical specialties of Cardiology and Pulmonology.

Alexis J. Bell

Alexis J. Bell was an undergraduate student at Butler University from 2018-2020. She was a Psychology major and a Neuroscience minor. During her two years at Butler, she was a student scientist in Dr. Tara Lineweaver’s lab. She assisted with a number of research studies including the Music and Dementia project that involved generating and playing individualized music playlists for older adult nursing home residents with dementia. She also served as a student co-leader on the current project, which was designed to compare the effectiveness of a study tips presentation to that of reading an article explaining the same study tips as ways to improve college students’ everyday study habits.