How to Be a Successful Student

20 Study Habits Based on the Science of Learning

Richard E. Mayer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429843624
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

How to Be a Successful Student is a clear, concise, evidence-based guide to the habits that are scientifically proven to help people learn. Acclaimed educational psychologist Richard Mayer distils cutting edge research to focus on the 20 best study habits for college students, including habits for motivating yourself to learn, managing your learning environment, and effectively applying learning strategies. This accessible, practical book covers all three areas with evidence-based, approachable suggestions to help you become a successful student by developing effective study habits and rejecting ineffective ones.

Part 1
Motive to Learn

Successful Habit #1

Find Personal Value in What You Are Learning

Biology Blues

Bob is not a big fan of biology. Don’t get me wrong, he has his favorite things to do in life. He loves sports, playing action video games, and in school, his favorite subjects are art and music. But he is now taking a course in biology that leaves him absolutely cold. This week’s assignment involves reading a chapter that explains how the human body works, including how the digestive system works, how the heart and lungs work, how the immune system works, and how the eyes and ears work. As Bob looks over the chapter he is overcome with an impending sense of boredom. Bob’s plan is to sit down somewhere and just power through this awful task of reading a biology chapter. In short, his plan is to not get emotionally involved with the task—just get it over with.

Interest and Value in Learning

What is wrong with Bob’s approach to his unpleasant task of reading a biology chapter? On the surface, he seems to be taking a level-headed approach. He doesn’t really like the prospect of having to read the material, but he is taking charge and committing himself to just gutting it out like he does for other unappealing tasks.

As I look over this situation, I am concerned that Bob is acting like an unsuccessful student. The problem with Bob’s approach is that more than a century’s worth of research on interest in learning shows that people learn better when they are personally interested in the material they are studying, and when they see value in the material for their own lives. In short, people work harder to understand the material when they can find personal meaning in what they are learning.

Before he begins the reading task, Bob needs to take a moment to consider why the lesson might be useful to him. If you were Bob’s friend, how would you help him see the value in what he is learning? Please place a check mark next to the ideas that you should share with Bob:

• □ A. Tell him to think about how good it will feel to finish this task and be able to cross it off his to-do list.
• □ B. Tell him not to get emotionally involved with material —it is just something he needs to cram into his head for the test.
• □ C. Point out that music, which he loves, depends on how the human ear works, and art, which he loves, depends on how the human eye works, so learning about the biology of hearing and seeing could be useful to him as a musician and artist.
• □ D. Point out that he has serious allergies so understanding how the immune system works might give him insight into his allergies, and even help him reduce their intensity
• □ E. Point out (in a tactful way) that he is a bit overweight, so understanding how the human digestive system works might be helpful to him.
• □ F. Point out that he loves sports, so he might be interested in how the human body increases the rate of blood flow when athletes exert themselves.

Option A may seem like reasonable tough-love advice. Some things in life are unpleasant but just need to be done. But, this approach violates our goal of helping Bob find a reason to be interested in the material. By telling him to just get it over with, we would be confirming Bob’s assessment that the material has little value or meaning for him. I have a similar objection to option B. However, if you checked options C, D, E, or F, you are on the right track in helping Bob find value in what he is studying. In each case, you are helping Bob relate the material with something in his life that he values, although you might want to be gentle with option E, as his weight could be a sore point for him. In short, options C, D, E, and F reflect the motivational habits of successful students.

Value Habit

You have just learned an important lesson about motivating someone (including yourself) to learn: People learn better when they value and are personally interested in what they learn. We can call this the value habit, and it is an excellent place to start on your journey toward becoming a successful student. Try to take a moment to determine why the material you are learning might have some value to you. As the famous educational scholar John Dewey (1913) observed more than 100 years ago in his classic little book, Interest and Effort in Education: “If we can secure interest in a given set of facts or ideas we may be perfectly sure that the pupil will direct his energies toward mastering them.” Since then, researchers have compiled convincing evidence, particularly in the last few decades, that students learn more deeply when they are interested in the material than when they are not (Alexander & Grossnickle, 2017; Renninger & Hidi, 2016; Wigfield, Tonks, & Klauda, 2016).

So What Should I Do?

Here are some ways to develop the value habit:

1. Look through the chapter or lecture notes and generate a written list of the three most interesting parts along with a sentence telling why each is of interest to you.
2. Write a one-paragraph essay on why this chapter or lecture could be useful to you.
3. Write a one-paragraph introduction to the chapter as if you were the author (or a one-paragraph introduction to the lecture as if you were the instructor) explaining why this material is valuable and interesting.

If none of these tactics appeals to you, you may need to develop your own way of carrying out the value habit. In building your specific tactics, you should be guided by the general strategy summarized in the box.

Box 1 How to Apply the Value Habit

Do this:	Not this:
Take a moment to find something of personal value or interest to you in the material.	Power through the material even if it is boring to you.

Sources

Alexander, P. A., & Grossnickle, E. M. (2017). Positioning interest and curiosity within a model of academic development. In K. R. Wentzel & D. B. Miele (Eds.), Handbook of motivation at school (2nd ed; pp. 188–208). New York: Routledge.

Dewey, J. (1913). Interest and effort in education. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Renninger, K. A., & Hidi, S. E. (2016). The power of interest for motivation and engagement. New York: Routledge.

Wigfield, A., Tonks, S. M., & Klauda, S. L. (2016). Expectancy-value theory. In K. R. Wentzel & D. B. Miele (Eds.), Handbook of motivation at school (2nd ed; pp. 55–74). New York: Routledge.

Successful Habit #2

Set Your Goal to Mastering the Material

Last Words

The last thing that Kathy’s dad said when she set off to college was, “We’re spending a lot of money on your college education, so don’t flunk out.” Those words are ringing through her head as she sits down to study for her first exam in Introduction to Economics, which turns out to be chock full of complicated terms, long equations, and incomprehensible concepts. To make matters worse, she thinks back to class discussions where her classmates seemed to already know the material quite well. Faced with the daunting task of studying her textbook and notes, she has set a goal for herself. She even has written it on an index card that she keeps as a bookmark: “DON’T GET THE LOWEST GRADE IN THE CLASS.”

Goals for Learning

Before we analyze this situation, let me ask you to place a check mark next to each kind of goal that you think would be helpful to Kathy to have:

• □ A. I want to avoid looking bad by getting a lower grade than others in the class.
• □ B.I want to look good by getting a higher grade than others in the class.
• □ C. I want to completely understand the material to my satisfaction.

If you chose option A, you are taking Kathy’s approach to setting academic goals. You might look at Kathy’s situation and think: “Well, at least Kathy is motivated to study. She has a goal that will keep her going.” However, when I look at this situation, I suspect she is on the way to becoming an unsuccessful student. Option A reflects what can be called a performance-avoidance goal, in which your goal is to avoid poor performance. The problem with this approach is that research shows that academic goals based on avoiding poor performance are not generally associated with academic success (Martin, 2013; Murayama, Elliot, & Friedman, 2012; Senko, 2016). When you seek to avoid poor grades, you are encouraging yourself to learn in a way that is not likely to give you a solid knowledge base to support future learning; instead, you are focused solely on short-term techniques to avoid getting a bad external assessment.

What else could Kathy do? If you chose option B, your focus is also on grades as with option A, but in this case your goal is to achieve good academic performance— that is, you want to look better than others in the class. This might seem like the perfect alternative for Kathy’s poor choice, but while I agree that option B is better than option A, it might not be as perfect as it looks. Option B reflects what can be called a performance-approach goal in which your goal is to achieve good performance, such as to get better grades than your classmates. In this case, Kathy would work to do well on a test, but may not care about learning the material for the long run. Even worse, if Kathy opts for option B, she runs the risk of becoming a “grade grubber”—someone who wants an A so badly that she will choose classes and instructors solely based on how it affects her GPA (grade point average), will argue with the instructor to get more points on exams even when she doesn’t deserve them, and will constantly ask, “Will that be on the test?” For a grade grubber the prize is getting an A for its own sake rather than learning something. Even if Kathy does not fall into the role of a grade grubber, the problem with option B—by itself— is that it does not necessarily involve trying to deeply understand the material so it might not provide a solid basis for future learning. Option B is not necessarily a terrible approach because research shows that seeking to get better grades is linked with academic success in the short term (Martin, 2013; Murayama, Elliot, & Friedman, 2012; Senko, 2016). Certainly, I must admit that grades can be important for opening up future opportunities, and you should be careful to give yourself the best opportunity to achieve the grades you want. However, a focus solely on option B may not be the perfect approach because it does not lead to a long-term commitment to continue learning in the subject area.

If you chose option C, perhaps along with option B, you are on the road to becoming a successful student. Option C reflects what can be called a mastery goal, in which you seek to understand the material, that is, you engage in learning for its own sake because you want to make sense out of the material. Research shows that this approach is linked to long-term success and persistence in a field of study (Martin, 2013; Murayama, Elliot, & Friedman, 2012; Senko, 2016). When you combine a mastery goal with a performance-approach goal, you can combine good grades in the short term with persistence in learning over the long term. In short, mastery goals can give you the foundation you need for future learning and the motivation you need to stick with your academic career when things start to get tough.

Goal Habit

Kathy’s situation demonstrates the important point that your academic goals are related to your academic achievement. In short, the goal habit is: People learn better when their goal is to master the material they are studying. When you are faced with new material to learn, set your sites on completely understanding it. You want to make sense out of the material for the long run, not just memorize it for the sake of doing well on a test and then forget it. For example, this means you need to be on the lookout for parts that need to be clarified so you can seek out the needed clarification. This also means that you need to set specific learning objectives for yourself, and test yourself to make sure you meet them. Additionally, it means that you need to elaborate on the material and connect it with related material you already know. I explore these and related le...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Academic Success Depends on MOM: Motive, Opportunity, and Means
• PART 1 MOTIVE TO LEARN
• PART 2 OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN
• PART 3 MEANS TO LEARN
• Conclusion: 20 Habits for Successful Studying
• Index