Contrary to evidence, many first-year students believe they have good study and time management skills because their techniques were successful in high school. The rational works well for them and is self-validating, otherwise they would not been admitted to the University.

However, things are different for the successful student when they enter the university, when they are transitioning. While there are many differences, there are some that stand out in this note’s context. First, everyone enrolled in an university class was probably an 'excellent' learner at high school. Unfortunatley, the expectations and standards are different at the higher education level. The student is, for the first time, 100% surrounded by peers who were also excellent learners while in high school. Excellent has a new definition and baseline.

High school and university...

In high school, many students

• studied by reading through their notes (or maybe not at all, having mastered the material as it was taught)
• had more than enough time to prepare for exams (due to the time between exams and the small amount of time needed to master the material)
• had more than enough time to complete all questions on an exam
• did not have material crammed in, lots of access to the teacher, relatively lenient marking, etc.

At university, most students find out that


• they don’t have enough time to prepare for exams as they did in high school
• the tests and assignments are often clustered, possibly two or three in one day
• the exams are often longer than in high school (i.e., more is being tested)
• overall there is more material to study as every lecture is jammed full with knowledge, facts, and recipes
• that the lectures are really fast – limited examples, limited explanations
• there are things called Teaching Assistants (they do not know what to do with them)
• the university instructors are not 100% dedicated to teaching, have office hours, and expect the students to deal with the TAs first
• the standards are higher and the markers are more picky about mistakes and what is accepted. (what was great in high school is now average)
• the assignment questions and examples are not always 100% like what will be on the test
• the instructor might just say, read pages nn-nn, or chapter nn, and the student is left to figure it out

Implications, suggestions to students...

The students will need to learn to study more effectively and more efficiently.

The instructor should help junior students learn how to study and how to study for their particular course. Students should know what generally works and what does not work; and what things are different from high school.

To the students:

• Reading, and rereading your notes is not an efficient way to study. Every time you read your notes the subject seems easier because you remember the words, not because you are mastering the material. If there is something that you don’t understand, so can’t summarize the concept, seek help from the teaching team, or from references like the course textbook.
• Think about what the instructor has emphasized, what the learning outcomes are. Think about the quizzes and other assessments during the term; what skills and knowledge are these designed to demonstrate? What skills and knowledge are REALLY being assessed, probed?
• Read your notes once, to make a summary of the material, and to highlight specific key details.
• If you are allowed to bring a crib sheet to the exam, start one immediately and use it while you do the weekly work. This is version 1.0 of this page (and as such, can be a small number of rough pages as the term progresses). If you aren’t allowed to bring a crib sheet to the exam, make one anyway, it will be the list of information you make sure that you have committed to memory before the exam. You will want to do this even if you are allowed to bring in items like your notes or a textbook.
• Be selective in terms of what you put in the summary, don’t just copy large sections of your notes. When you are making this summary, you are deciding what is important, and what the relationship is between course concepts. By “chunking” this material together, you are helping your brain file it too.
• After you have made your summary, you are going to use it to do practice exam problems. You may find when doing a problem that you need something from your notes, so you can look up that information and then add it to the sheet. In this way you will build a final version of the summary. But otherwise, don’t reread you notes again. You are wasting your time if you decide to reread your notes again.
• Similar to this, don’t spend time resolving old assignment problems that you have already done or that were taken up in tutorial. You are already familiar with the problem so you are missing out on practicing skills needed to figure out how to approach the problem, and skills needed involving knowing what to look for when you encounter a new problem.
• Practice what you will be tested on. This means trying new problems that use the course skills. Practice questions can involve old exams that the instructor may have made available, or extra tutorial problems, or questions in the course textbook. If solutions to the practice problems are available, use them to check your work after you have tried the problem. Practice time management while studying and practicing.

• Practice the way you will be tested; same type of environment, same time pressure, same aids. Seek help later from your study buddies, not during the practicing.

Co-dependencies & The Necessary and Hopefully Sufficient

• We cannot assume that most students know how to study when they get to the university, or that they will realize for themselves that a different style will be necessary. We have to assume that the students will assume that they are ok and will be ok. We cannot wish this away or deny this reality. We have to deal with it.
• We have to be pro-active as much as possible and supportive as much as possible. We cannot simply say that all previous students have gone through this, that they have gone through this without help, and that this is what everyone has to suffer through. We cannot assume that today’s students have the ability to suck it up and get it sorted out.
• Because of the validation issues, the students will need to experience their ‘gap’. They will listen to their own voice and to their immediate peer group of similar thinkers. They will NOT listen to senior students, instructors, or TAs. We need to recognize this and manage the situation. If we can give the lesson sooner and make it stick (e.g., make it memorable) and then follow up with the support, there is a good chance to help the students.
• We cannot just give a lesson and then do nothing. We need the supports and processes in place to help the student change. This requires the instructor to make space in the lectures, to have reflection exercises and practice sessions where the students can learn the new techniques and try them out. Having the mid-term, having a good discussion, discussing different strategies, and then waiting to the final exam to see if they help will not work. The instructor has to provide the deliberate practice and iterations. They must be designed into the junior courses.

Further reading

• Vermunt, J.D.H.M. and F. A.W.M van Rijswijk (1988), Analysis and development of students' skill in selfregulated learning. Higher Education, 17, pp. 647-682.
• Wingate, U. (2006).Doing away with 'study skills', Teaching in Higher Education, 11, 4, pp. 457
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