The method to study in 15 minutes, according to Stanford

Whether to learn a language, pass a subject or finish your career, studying is an activity that we all have to face at some time, the problem is that it is usually accompanied by stress, procrastination, boredom, and anxiety. There is a method to study in 15 minutes.

Now, a researcher at Stanford University says she has a 15-minute trick that could quickly help students improve their grades.

How does the method to study work?

Professor Patricia Chen, a postdoctoral researcher in social psychology at Stanford, selected ten groups before examining two groups of young people.

The first one only told him that the exam was close and that they had to start studying, while the second one gave him a 15-minute test on the exam they were about to face.

He recommended that they reflect before starting the test and wonder which note they wanted to take, what would be the importance of this result in their student career and what they thought they would have to win the test. In addition, they had to justify what type of tools they would use to study (books, videos, applications).

This simple program of self-knowledge was decisive for the second group of students to obtain more outstanding notes than the first one who did what many students do when faced with a test: to throw themselves into the void, without criteria of what they are responding to.

The key to study is metacognition

“Often students are released to study without thinking before they mapped out a strategy on what to use, without understanding why they are using every resource, without planning how they will use them to learn efficiently” , said Chen.

When seeing the results, in the research called: ” The strategic use of resources for learning: An intervention of self-reflection that improves academic performance”, published in the journal Psychological Science, the author concluded that the key lies in metacognition.

And what is that?

It is the ability of people to reflect on the process of their thoughts and how they learn new things. In other simple words: it is learning to learn.

Patricia Chen said that the educational success lies in the students being aware of what they are studying. “A trick that few take seriously.”

How to put the study technique into practice?

Step 1: Think and list your options before studying

Begin by writing down the resources you have access to books, notes, PowerPoints or class presentations, audio recordings, essay suggestions, etc.

Step 2: Make your plan

Now that you know what resources work for you, it’s time to make it work for you. And that implies making a specific plan. Participants were asked to do exactly that: plan when, where and how they would use the study resources they identified. It is an important part of the method to study.

Step 3: Establish and achieve your goals

Go back to goal setting. Knowing what you are looking for can help you not to spend hours studying.

Step 4: Know what you can

You can. Self-efficacy, or simply believing that you are able to plan and carry out the tasks necessary for your performance, was the best predictor of student achievement and performance.