Faculty Forum

TL;DR: The provided handout detailing tips for self-assessment and comprehension is helpful and well-used by students. The lecture-notes tip is the most helpful, followed by the course-performance chart, elaborative encoding, question and answer, self-help quizzes, and study-group tips.

Abstract: I describe a systematic approach to study tips whereby I provide students with a handout detailing several tips designed to promote self-assessment and comprehension. A total of 114 introductory psychology students rated the helpfulness of, and the degree to which they used, 6 tips. They rated the lecture-notes tip the most helpful; tips regarding a course-performance chart, elaborative encoding, and question and answer as intermediate in helpfulness; and self-help quizzes and study-group tips, least helpful. There was a small but significant correlation between the students' helpfulness ratings of the tips overall and their course performance to that point. Mean degree-of-use ratings for each tip showed the same order as mean helpfulness ratings. Overall degree-of-use ratings were correlated with overall helpfulness ratings, but not with course performance.