Concordia College - Moorhead

Low utility learning strategies have limited benefits and performance is not consistently improved with these habits.
- Summarizing
- Highlighting and Underlining
- Keyword Mnemonics
- Imagery Use
- Rereading

Low utility learning strategies are not recommended for any students.

Low Utility Learning Strategies

Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. https://doi-org.cordproxy.mnpals.net/10.1177/1529100612453266


Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and  Educational Psychology

Students are asked to summarize the main points of a text.

Rates as having low utility as summarization requires experience to do well, which many beginner students would not have. Therefore, it is not a generalizable study skill. There is also no evidence that summarization helps effectively boost “student’s learning, comprehension and retention of course material” (p.18).


Summerizing

Students underline or highlight important information in the text.

Rated as having low utility. Research shows that it does very little to boost academic performance. Moreover, it may cause students to remember the wrong information, as they often have to infer what is important within the text.


Highlighting and Underlining

A “technique based on interactive imagery that was developed by Atkinson and Raugh (1975)” (p.21).  For example, a student might imagine a goose eating a worm to remember the Spanish word for worm (gusano)

Rated as low utility due to little efficiency, and low efficacy, especially when tested for delayed retention.


Keyword Mnemonics

Imagery Use (For Text learning)

Students read through textbook material again before the exam. 65% of surveyed college students reported utilizing rereading as a study method for exams.

Rated as low utility. So far, the only research about rereading has been done on college-level students, so no conclusion can be made about whether or not it works for younger students. It is also considerably less effective for academic achievement than other study habits.


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