Study Less And Learn More?

From the psychological perspective, study habits are regarded as the strategic planning of educational process with the specific and even individual methods. The issues serve as the sufficient assistance in learning. Furthermore, it is a part of personal experience, which involves people in educational process during their life without taking into consideration of the requirements to study habits. Nevertheless, these aspects can limit, increase or decrease possibilities and affect the learning success. The problem is quite debatable and various researchers in the area of psychology investigate it. Doug Rohrer and Harold Pashler conducted a survey about the essence of habits, their types as well as the relation of retention and study time. Therefore, study habits are related to the academic success, as they influence retention and are based on duration of learning.

Rohrer and Pashler researched overlearning along with the duration of study breaks and discovered that learning strategies are quite beneficial for students, as they can support the permanent awareness. However, they also concluded that the technique of the long-lasting retention is almost unknown. The investigations of Rohrer and Pashler concern the aspects of temporal division of the educational sessions and their duration (Rohrer & Pashler, 2007). In other words, they tried to define which type of strategy is more efficient: one long session or several sessions. Moreover, one session should depend on the character of the educational material and it must be long enough to safeguard a mastery level of understanding of the information. Nonetheless, the use of additional time for further study is inefficient. The spacing effect includes specific division of the amount of information and time into several sessions, which depends on intervals between tests and study. In the spacing method, the intervals between the sessions are also essential. Hence, the investigations confirmed the effect of overlearning, spacing and duration of study breaks. Although the overlearning increases the learning effect and its performance, it is effective only for a short period of time, and after some time the knowledge is diminished (Rohrer & Pashler, 2007). If the time for overlearning is spent for reviewing the educational material, the feedback can be better. Therefore, there are fewer benefits from overlearning than from spacing since the latter can produce quite a long-lasting feedback. However, in some cases overlearning is preferable, especially for pilots, nurses and soldiers as they perform the routine job. Rohrer and Pashler (2007) examined the issue regarding mathematics, because it requires learning some concrete issues and the results can be considerably different.

The findings of the authors have implications for the way the mathematics is currently taught in schools. The scientists conducted investigations of two groups of overlearners and spacers. Both had the same permutation tasks after the durable period of learning. They observed that the assignment based on heave overlearning had no significant effect on the general scores. However, this strategy is popular in the majority of mathematical textbooks, which probably diminish success of math education. Moreover, the textbooks present the practical programs for the students, which are grounded on preceding materials. Thus, such an educational program is oriented on massing and it is non-effective as the same practice contains only similar problems (Rohrer & Pashler, 2007). Each practice and mathematical material proposes almost identical problems, which lead to overlearning. From a different perspective, a mathematical practice can be more exciting and useful if the textbooks change their format according to the spacing method. Hence, the information and the problems related to a specific topic would be distributed in the book. A randomized system of textbook presentation will help to omit routine short-term knowledge. The students will face a variety of problems and they will be able to apply rational thinking instead of standard mechanic ideas. Therefore, the investigations confirmed that the current methods of education in mathematics are inefficient as they are based on overlearning instead of spacing.

Supporting the conclusions of Rohrer and Pashler, Odiri (2015) conducted the independent research in Nigerian schools and confirmed the relations of study habits and achievements in mathematics. However, the survey does not have an intention to define the methods and types of study habits. The scholars generalized the habits into two main groups, namely poor study habits and good study habits. Consequently, weak study habits lead to poor achievements in mathematics, even if the habits transfer slowly into the automatic reaction in education and the students repeat the process as the ritual at home or at school. Ffurthermore, Odiri (2015) argues that some children have quite insignificant success in mathematics because of their poor organization of time and study habits (Odiri, 2015). Thus, John Dunlosky with the assistance of other psychologists tried to define the essence of good study habits and the ways to improve education by means of appropriate techniques.

The investigation is focused on defining the most effective methods of learning for the shortest period. As it was previously mentioned, studying for a long time employing poor techniques or study habits leads to negative effects and short redemption. John Dunlosky et al. (2013) presented various methods and regarded 10 of them the most effective. Moreover, these techniques are easy in application and adoption by the students. "The techniques include self-explanation, elaborative interrogation, highlighting (or underlining), summarization, the keyword mnemonic, rereading, imagery use for text learning, practice testing, interleaved practice and distributed practice (Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan, & Willingham, 2013). However, five of them received quite negative responses because of low utility. The benefits of these habits are almost insignificant despite the long time spent for learning. The limited success of techniques is not related to the conditions of studying. Some methods are not universal and can be implemented only in exceptional cases. For instance, the study habit of keyword mnemonic is effective only for particular material and has a short period of retention. Reviewing and restudying are necessary sometimes making this habit less effective and non-reliable. The investigation of Dunlosky et al. (2013) is directed not only to discover effective learning techniques but also to encourage researches to develop useful approaches in organization of productive studying process and the informed choice of textbooks.

In opposition to the provided evidence, ?ak?ro?lu (2014) defines the problem of style, habits and time needed for learning. The issue is regarded from the perspective of the performance of knowledge. His investigations were randomized. In comparison with the previous sources, this article is presented for the teachers and instructors in order to encourage them to penetrate and expand an effective learning style among the students hence making the course synchronous and equally productive for both distant students and visitors (?ak?ro?lu, 2014). Additionally, this research is essential, as it shows the difference between learning style and learning habits. Therefore, the conclusions of Rohrer and Pashler cannot be considered absolute as learning style is an individual aspect of any kind of learning method or technique. Overlearning and spacing can be viewed in the context of personal memory abilities, skills, background notions and other issues.

As a result, I developed my personal study habits of effective educational process, high achievements and long retention. I considered the investigations of famous psychologists, regarded their findings and evaluated my own techniques adopted in the academic activities. I prefer spacing in education for abstract knowledge as it has quite long retention and takes the limited amount of time. However, I cannot reject overlearning completely since it is quite necessary and useful in some cases, despite various negative responses and conclusions of the researches. I applied overlearning as an effective method in routine practice of car driving. Rationalization and rapid reaction of a professional driver are not based on memory, they are related to overlearning of practical skills. Nevertheless, in the process of studying I incline towards spacing because of long-lasting retention and good performance during exams and testing. Thus, these methods are considered from the perspective of my personal studying style. Usually, I resort to different memory games and devices. Before studying, I test my knowledge to find the errors and compare it with background skills. The educational process should have appropriate organization that is why I practice studying with the friends making the academic activities more exciting. Additionally, in the circumstances of competitions, the educational process can be more efficient within a short space of time.

Consequently, education can be effective as a result of implementation of the appropriate method of studying. The article by Rohrer and Pashler investigates the relation of learning techniques and time. The researchers regarded two essential methods of overlearning in cases of routine knowledge and spacing, which can produce a long-lasting effect and requires less time for sessions. Rohrer and Pashler conducted significant studies in the area of mathematics. Their conclusions contradict the contemporary style of mathematical textbooks, they are written in accordance with the overlearning principle. However, mathematical achievements are possible by including spacing, as massing leads to low retention. The majority of analyzed articles support the ideas of Rohrer and Pashler that study habits are an important source of success in education. Nevertheless, the learning style cannot be absolute. Despite multiple investigations, the style of studying can be only individual. Therefore, I prefer the personally developed practices of learning.

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