Cultivating Study Skills

In a special guest blog post, as exam season approaches, Our Director of Teaching, Mr Merk, reflects on the importance of pupils understanding the reasoning behind effective study techniques.

As a Biology Teacher, if I see my houseplants’ leaves are wilting or changing colour, my brain immediately starts to visualise the biochemical and physiological deficiencies and I start to plan a course of action to remedy this. If wilting, I add water to aid the turgidity of the plant cells. If it has patches of yellow between the veins, I add mulch to the roots to provide more iron for chlorophyll production. If it has small brown spots, this can be a fungal disease, so I prune the leaves and apply a fungicide. I can plan a course of action as I understand what is going on in the plant’s biology. If these remedies don’t work, I then take a scientific approach to work through other possible solutions until one works. Essentially, I seek to understand the ‘why’ behind each action rather than just performing the action itself.

Similarly, it’s important that students understand their own cognitive processing when studying, rather than just employing good study practices themselves.

We frequently remind our students to get sufficient sleep in their revision period and exam season. They have also been warned of the negative effects of procrastination, multi-tasking and passive note taking in lieu of active recall techniques. In addition, maintaining good diet and regular exercise has been a core focus. These are all rightly valid habits to adopt for success at all stages of life, not just preparing for GCSE and A Level examinations, but they can be hard to adopt or buy in to when one has already developed set ways of working, unless they really understand the reasoning behind the advice. This links to Simon Sinek’s theory that people are more likely to be inspired to act when they understand the ‘why’ behind something.

Cognitive science is defined as the scientific study of conscious mental processes and neuroscience: the scientific study of the nervous system and brain. These branches of science have been embedded in education psychology since the 1990s to help teaching practitioners better understand how to help students learn; however, in recent years it is seeing a surge in implementation due to an increase in empirical evidence from research studies on student engagement, performance and experience. Below are some examples:

1. Sleep provides an optimal opportunity for consolidation of memory and removing waste metabolites from the brain. Evidence suggests that reduced external stimulation of the brain gives it a chance to consolidate stimuli it has received during the day and organise this for long term storage. Increased neurotransmitter concentrations during sleep also promote communication between areas of the brain responsible for memory storage, such as the hippocampus and neocortex. Sleep is equally associated with increased neural pruning (getting rid of no longer required neurones and synapses) which can improve cognitive efficiency, accurate knowledge retention and strengthen important connections (i.e. the ‘use it or lose it’ principle)
2. Spaced practice is a well-evidenced,  highly effective study technique that suggests planning ahead to review content over time, rather than massed practice/cramming, demands a stronger cognitive effort, improving memory and performance. Many students think that cramming is a superior method, loading up the brain with information prior to an assessment, which may well be due to the reduced discipline required to work in this way. But cramming  can increase cognitive load and therefore the chances of forgetting key details. Instead, opting for a spaced approach means that information is regularly organised, recalled and used, strengthening connections between it and other information and therefore making the use of this information in an assessment setting (or outside of this) much more natural. This can also encourage more chunked practice and interleaving between subjects or topic areas if planned in the right way, further strengthening overall understanding by building stronger connections between memories
3. Students will often hear teachers saying to focus on progress and process rather than the result of an assessment, encouraging them to adopt a growth mindset. This can be quite hard to overlook when the teenage brain is wired to value judgement of others above other things (Hohnen, 2021). Growth mindset has been linked to improved academic performance and motivation. Neuroimaging in a study by Cowan et al. revealed that these improvements were associated with increased activation and connectivity in brain regions responsible for cognitive control, motivation, and memory. This suggests that focusing on learning processes can induce neuroplastic changes that support a growth mindset

Focusing on learning processes can induce neuroplastic changes that support a growth mindset.

So, how do we share this information with our girls to help them take it on board? Our student learning community, comprised of Year 10 and Lower Sixth students, has led year group assemblies on cognitive science related to study skills, produced posters to explain the biological reasoning behind different responses, completed surveys to help prioritise which areas to address first, and is working on a newsletter to share with students at the start of the summer term. Our newly updated revision booklets, circulated before end of year exams, now include a range of digital study methods and references to provide evidence behind each of the areas of study advice given, so that students can see that it has a scientific basis. Equally, staff training this year has focused on a cognitive science approach to both pastoral and academic areas of school life – with cognitive science as a common thread in our professional development journey, teachers can better embed this within our classroom practice.

It is also important to acknowledge the ever-developing presence of generative AI in our society, particularly in education. AI provides teachers with an incredible opportunity to personalise, refine and create new ways of learning whilst offering students a platform which, if used correctly and ethically, can be extremely beneficial to support learning and revision. This field is developing extremely fast and we, as a school community, are keeping abreast of such advancements to ensure that we can support and educate our students in the best way possible for this inevitable technological part of their future studies and lives.

Just like with tending to houseplants, the more we take time to understand the ‘why’ behind adopting particular habits and actions to develop our behaviours (in this case, study skills and learning), the more likely we are to implement them in a more purposeful way and reap the benefits. We issued our Year 7 to 10 revision booklets earlier than usual this year to encourage girls to adopt a spaced practice approach to their revision for end of year examinations. Many have already planned out their studies with guidance from their pastoral tutors and academic teachers. With plans in place, it is important for girls to rest over the Easter holidays. Those with GCSE and A Level examinations approaching should use the time to balance their revision with healthy sleeping, organisation, a growth mindset and some fun plans to cognitively disconnect.

By teaching our pupils how best to tend to their study habits – and rooting the advice in evidence from cognitive science – we aim to provide the most conducive environment for them to thrive, to flourish and to grow. I wish you all a wonderful Easter break.