Different study or learning approaches are described below. As you read, think about which of them are most familiar or typical to you.


Deep approach to learning

When studying, is your aim to deeply understand what you are studying? Do you strive to combine the study contents into a personal whole that makes sense to you? Are you trying to understand the backgrounds and general principles of phenomena? When you are studying, do you often find yourself asking 'why' questions? Do you often find yourself reflecting on where the information comes from and how have the contents and phenomena been discovered? Do you take personal notes / make mind maps / underline text while you are studying? Do you often discuss what you are studying together with your friends or apply what you have learned in solving practical problems? If you said 'yes' to the questions above, you are using a deep approach to learning in your study.

This is an often fairly laborious learning method, but will result in good learning outcomes in the long run. At times, it might be appropriate to conduct studies in a slightly more superficial way so that studying does not become too stressful; however, understanding and learning critical thinking is at the heart of university studies. If this method of study is unfamiliar to you, you can start practising it, for instance, using the following technique: 

  1. Change the main and sub headings of a course book or lecture into personal questions
  2. First, answer the questions briefly off the top of your head
  3. Use this as a basis for outlining what you know about the topic and what not, and create new questions for yourself on the uncertain subjects
  4. Start going through the course book or lecture material, trying to find answers to the questions.
  5. Make personal notes on what new things you have learned. Did new questions arise to which you have no answers yet? Next, immerse yourself in these questions? Did you already get a taste of an increasingly in-depth way of building knowledge and get to experience the joy of learning new things properly?

Organized studying

Do you use a lot of time and effort to studying? Do you make clear plans for studying and think carefully how you use the hours of your day? Do you aim to be an organised and systematic student? Is completing studies according to timetables important to you? If you said yes to the questions above, you are using an organised approach to studying. Studying in such an organised way is a very central study skill at the university as academic work is often independent and requires good self-management skills. Indeed, it is no wonder that organised students are often very successful in their studies. If you are not yet used to planning your studies, it is advisable to start practising it as soon as possible.


Surface approach to learning

Do you perceive university studies as a series of separate facts you must learn by heart? When studying, do you mostly aim to know the study contents in a test / exam and then forget about them? Do you think that the teachers know the subjects and that facts can be found in books, and that your task as a student is to remember and learn the facts as they are stated in the books and presented in the lectures? Do you tend to repeatedly cram the topics of study into your head so that you would remember them? Does studying usually consist of just reading or listening or completing given assignments for you? Do you feel like it is difficult for you to manage the topics of learning? If you said 'yes' to the questions above, you are probably using a surface approach to learning in your study. This kind of an approach may work reasonably, for instance, in upper secondary school or in some individual university course that is not particularly important and meaningful for you. However, if your entire university studies look like this, it is likely that you a struggling in your studies.

Sometimes this sort of a studying method is legacy of upper secondary school studies or caused by being in a hurry. Sometimes poor background knowledge or personal belief of not being a good enough student leads to such a study method. On the other hand, sometimes a difficult life situation may result in not having enough strength to study issues in a versatile and in-depth manner, but, instead, with more focus on learning things by heart.

It is highly important for university studies that you are not even attempting to learn things by heart. It is more important to perceive what is central to the learning subject and make efforts to understand this. It is similarly important to combine the subjects of learning into entities and aims to see beyond individual issues and learn to perceive general laws and principles underlying the issues. In case you feel that you do not have enough time or resources for using a deep approach to learning at the moment, it is advisable that you think about where you could find time and resources for studying. If you have time and resources for studying, but nevertheless use a surface approach to learning, you can start practising a different approach to studying using the following methods:

  • Find out information about what is central to the courses or exercises. The main contents of courses should be explained in study guides and course materials, and teachers and often also students who have already taken the course also know what is essential in the course and what is not.
  • Build your understanding on core subjects by drawing, writing or outlining graphs.
  • Practise asking questions about the studied subject, initially by answering the questions yourself and subsequently by seeking the missing information from different sources: textbooks, friends, teachers, online...
  • Try to figure out where the information in the text is coming from, who has written the text and what the one written the text has wanted to communicate?
  • Try to determine where the information in the textbook comes from, who has written the text and what has he or she been trying to communicate?


Study techniques based on research data

Study techniques refer to ways to absorb new information in different learning situations. For example, what kind of notes should be taken during the lecture so that the information can be remembered for a longer time, and not just for a moment. Many university students use study techniques that are not very effective considering research data. For example, re-reading does not usually lead to deeper learning. Finding study techniques that work for you require self-knowledge and trying out different techniques. However, what the techniques that work, have in common is that they require processing new information.

When different study techniques have been researched, four study techniques have been found that work in a wide variety of learning situations and with different learners. You can think about which of these study techniques you already use.

1. Testing yourself

Students often find assessment situations in their studies stressful, but it has been studied that self-testing and recalling information through questions or hints supports learning. Testing yourself is a good way to stop and notice if you really know what you are studying and what you should study more. You can test yourself, for example, by thinking before the lecture, based on the course-slides, what kind of questions you assume you will be able to answer after the lecture. It is important to check at the end of the lecture whether you can actually answer the questions presented. You can also use exams from previous years to test yourself, or make yourself memory cards on which you write, for example, a concept on one side and its definition on the other side.

2. Periodization of learning

Research data shows that new information is better remembered if you divide your studying into time-periods and have enough breaks between, instead of studying in one go intensively. If you study the subject just before the exam in a couple of days, the learning will be more superficial than if you studied the same time spread over a period. In terms of learning, it is also good if you can take a break between study sessions, because it is good for learning that we have to make an effort when we recall information after a break. If our study moments are very close to each other, we can imagine that we know things better than we really do. In addition, during sleep, new learned information is transferred to our long-term memory, and for this reason, it is beneficial for learning if you have time to sleep in between while studying the subject.

3. Why-questions

Small children often ask adults a lot of why-questions, so this kind of curiosity is natural to us humans in childhood. Why-questions are believed to be an efficient technique in terms of learning, because those activate old knowledge in the mind and thus help us to connect the new learned information to the previous knowledge, so that then the new knowledge is more permanently remembered. In addition, why questions make you think about why something is or isn't true. This leads to versatile processing. You should try to answer the why-questions as accurately as possible. They work especially in situations where you already know something about it. Why-questions have been found to be good way to active processing in pair and group work as well.

4. Explaining to oneself

Self-explanation as a study technique can mean that the student openly explains to himself how the solution of the task proceeds step by step or how the new information is meaningful to him. For example, you can imagine that you would explain the matter to a person who has little basic knowledge of the matter and explain at each step of the task why you act the way you act. On the other hand, thinking about what this sentence means to you, what kind of new information this paragraph offers, or how this new information is related to your previous knowledge, have been found to be effective questions in terms of learning.

Watch the Study Techniques-video (made by University of Oulu) here:

 Study techniques | University of Oulu

Senast redigerad: fredag, 22 december 2023, 10:59