"Revise."
They said.
Revise your classwork, homework, past exams, and answers, it is the only road to success. Yet when you are sitting in the exam room for a few weeks or months of studying later, your mind goes completely blank.
Was it your fault? Did you not study hard enough? Or maybe you just can’t? Now before we spiral into the madness that is self-doubt, let’s look at and compare a few revision techniques; more specifically active and passive recall.
It does not matter whether you simply review for your next class, your AP/A-levels/GCSE exam, or maybe even SAT/ACT, you are most likely using at least one of these two: active or passive recall. While many have already probably heard of them, not all efficiently implement them during their study sessions although they should. Here is why:
In recent years, a model of human memory that is referred to as the Ebbinghaus Curve of Forgetting has become quite widespread and influential. The model itself presents a graph that portrays how the newly learned material is forgotten over time. But how do we keep that knowledge? How do we store any and all information that we need in our long-term memory? Our best answer thus far is ---active repetition.
Active recall is a technique that requires one to actively repeat the information that they want to remember. There are many various ways of retention and retrieving knowledge, for example, flashcards, practice tests, note-taking, the Feynman technique, and more. Through repeated exposure one memorizes and understands the material better.
Passive recall on the other hand is a way of passively going over the material. It can range from reading and rereading notes and material, watching videos, mindlessly highlighting and copying, cramming, and more.
So which one is better? Let's observe a couple of studies and articles.
Herzing University’s article “Do Flashcards Work for College Students?” offers a study conducted with the help of 470 students of the ‘Intro to Psychology’ course where 70% of students used flashcards as a method of revising the materials. During the exam, these students had notably better results than their classmates who didn’t.
In another study for the Sixth International Conference on Higher Education Advances, Stuart Marlin, Lewis Morley, Tori English, Tahlia O'Keefe-Quinn, and Paige Whitfield studied and concluded that taking practice tests actually increases the scores that the students got.
So what can we conclude from these? Active recall is a much better technique than passive recall.
But if we were to use both together? Read and highlight, write flashcards and meaningful notes. This is actually a way that many people including myself use, and thus far it has been helping me a lot.
In short, active recall is a somewhat more reliable way of reviewing than passive recall; yet it is possible to enhance the results by joining the two together. So what do you choose? Which technique can, in your opinion, radicalize your exam and lesson prep for the better?
Till next week,
Nadiia
References:
“Do Flashcards Work for College Students?” Herzing University, 12 Aug. 2021, www.herzing.edu/blog/do-flashcards-work-college-students#:~:text=One%20study%20looked%20at%20470,than%20those%20who%20didn’t.
Jethva, Dharmarajsinh. “Active Recall, Passive Review & Spaced Repetition.” Codecademy, 2021, community.codecademy.com/blog/active-recall-passive-review-spaced-repetition/.
Marlin, Stuart, et al. “Practice Tests Improve Performance, Increase Engagement and Protect ...” ResearchGate, June 2020, www.researchgate.net/publication/341830783_Practice_tests_improve_performance_increase_engagement_and_protect_from_psychological_distress. Accessed 07 Sept. 2023.
Nowak, Paul. “What Is Active Recall and Passive Recall?” Iris Reading at the Speed of Thought , 10 May 2022, irisreading.com/what-is-active-recall-and-passive-recall/#:~:text=Active%20recall%20and%20passive%20recall%20are%20learning%20strategies%20that%20can,in%20information%20from%20learning%20materials.
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