The Benefits of Spaced Learning: Why Cramming is Not the Way to Go
We’ve all been there: cramming for a big exam the night before. We try our best to stay up late, highlight bits of the text, and hope for the best. Unfortunately, recent research has shown that this strategy of highlighting bits of text is ineffective for learning and retaining information.
Dr. Monty McKeon from the University of Virginia conducted a study of college students and found that highlighting bits of text had no effect on how well the students remembered the information. Instead, Dr. McKeon found that students who wrote summaries of the text they were studying did much better on exams than those who simply highlighted bits of the text. This suggests that actively engaging with the material, rather than passively highlighting it, is more effective at helping us learn and remember information.
source: Phys.org