Study Methods 3: Study life

Good study habits

Structuring your time

If you would like to develop better study habits, the best place to start is to plan your time. As a student you have a lot of balls in the air, and there has to be time for studies, friends, family, hobbies and relaxation.  Many students have a bad conscience about not managing everything they feel they should.

This means that studying also fills your free time, so you never really have time off. The bad conscience can come from not getting enough done in your allotted study time, either because you have unrealistic expectations of what you can manage, or because you are unable to concentrate without being distracted.

Plan your time
An easy first step is to make a weekly plan with an overview of your different activities, i.e. both study and free time. The plan may well be detailed, so that time is set aside for classes, preparation and group work separately. Remember that things like sleep, meals, transport, exercise and work also take time, and that there must be room for that. 

When you have got your week into a system, you can spend 5 minutes every morning looking through your calendar and planning your specific tasks: what has to be read, what has to be handed in and when do you have to do the different things? This planning frees up mental energy that you can then use on other things.

Here is an example of a weekly plan:

In addition to planning your time, it is also important to be able to prioritise your tasks. Assess which tasks need to be prioritised right now, and which should be planned for a later time. You can also consider which tasks you most feel like getting started on right now.

You have to find a balance between letting desire drive your work and knowing that sometimes there are no short cuts, and you have to sit down and work through it, even if the task is heavy and boring.  

Good study habits are a matter of good habits generally. When we have built in good habits, we do not constantly have to think about how to do things or persuade ourselves to get started on something. This frees up mental energy and surplus. 

Good advice for good study habits:

• Take time off when you are off! Just as you have to set aside time to study, remember also to build in time when you do not have to think about your studies. 
• Be realistic. You cannot always manage everything, and you do not manage more by having a bad conscience.  
• Build in routines around your studies so that they suit you and your everyday life, so that you for example study at the time when you are freshest.  
• Prioritise your time. Say yes to things that give you energy, and no to unnecessary commitments that drain you. 
• Set realistic time frames and deadlines for yourself. 
• Complete one task at a time so you do not have too many loose ends. 
• Take good care of yourself: eat healthily, get your sleep and move every day. You must not neglect your general well-being for your studies

Did you know?

Research shows that students who are good at managing their time get better grades, and they are generally more satisfied with their lives.
Macan, T. H., Shahani, C., Dipboye, R. L., & Phillips, A. P. (1990). College students’ time management: Correlations with academic performance and stress. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(4), 760–768. 

Motivation

You are responsible for your own learning, and ultimately your study effort depends on your own self-discipline.
That is why it is important that you can motivate yourself to make an effort. 

If you find it difficult to get started studying, this advice may help you: 

• Start by carrying out one single task, preferably one that is easy and straightforward. That can motivate you to get started on another task afterwards.
• Reach out to your fellow students. It is easier to get started if you have arranged it with others.
• Illustrate your progress and results, for example with post-its that can be moved from one category to another, or with the chain method, where you put a red cross in the calendar for every day on which you have maintained a new study habit. That could for example be talking aloud to yourself for 5 minutes after your study reading.

Here are more ways to motivate yourself: 
 

Set concrete goals for yourself 
A good goal can motivate precisely you, and it differs from person to person. A good goal is both realistic and ambitious at the same time and should preferably have a clear time limit. Make it concrete, for example writing 1 page of assignment text in 1.5 hours, rather than thinking: ”getting as much done as I can today”. Write your goals down and adjust them along the way in your process. 

Give yourself rewards    
Then you have something to look forward to when you have finished reading or completing a task. It can be anything from a walk with a friend or an episode of a series to a cup of hot chocolate.

Believe in yourself 
Have confidence in yourself and your abilities. You are in the middle of a development process and are learning more day by day. Think well of yourself and your effort.

Have fun while you study 
Think positively about your studies instead of seeing them as a tiresome duty. Your attitude matters to your experience of your studies. Do study together with others and create a positive atmosphere. 

The advice on motivation is based on p. 149-167 in the book: Schewe, O. (2017). Superstudent: Lær mere effektivt, og få bedre karakterer. Dansk Psykologisk Forlag.

Did you know?

Research shows that students' work effort and motivation can be affected by reflecting on why they study. If you can find a justification in the desire to learn, love of the subject or the hope of getting better, this will rub off on your effort and improve your experience of your studies.

Davies, R. S., & Osguthorpe, R. T. (2003). Reflecting on learner intent. Reflective Practice, 4(3), 303–315.

Active learning

We learn best when we are active and invested in our own learning. We remember less of the things we have learned through passive forms of learning, e.g. listening or reading, and more through the active forms of learning, where we act ourselves and work actively with tasks, presentations or practical exercises.

The active forms of learning are most often characterised by being learning in interaction with others. You can therefore usefully use your fellow students to learn better.

The following principles for active learning are concrete ways of optimising your learning:

Concentrate

Don't try to multitask. Concentrate on what you are doing. If you don't stay focused, the learning won't stick either. This applies both when you study on your own and in class. Be especially careful with the digital distractions from phones and social media. 

Check your understanding

Ask yourself: Have I understood it?  You learn and remember better when you have a good understanding of the topic. 
 

Find an interesting angle

Find an angle where you can link the topic to something that interests you, either personally or professionally. Interest is the best engine for learning.

Associate with your prior knowledge

Start your reading or group work by thinking about what you already know.  
If you can bring out your prior knowledge about the topic, you are off to a better start for remembering and understanding the new material.

Use self-interrogation

Self-interrogation is a very effective learning technique where you first read, and then put the book away. You then talk aloud to yourself and list everything you can remember. Use the chapter or section heading as your starting point. You can also do it together with a reading partner.   

Repeat

The more often you repeat your learning, the easier it becomes to retrieve your knowledge again. Even when you have learned something well, it makes sense to keep repeating, since this strengthens your long-term memory and storage of the material.

The principles are based on p. 38-45 in the book: Schewe, O. (2017). Superstudent: Lær mere effektivt, og få bedre karakterer. Dansk Psykologisk Forlag. 

Procrastination

You are not the only one who finds that cleaning suddenly becomes very appealing when you are about to study.

It is easy to move your focus away from what is cognitively demanding, and instead spend your time on something that is perhaps easier and more pleasant to be in. It takes practice to teach yourself to focus more intensively, and although it is not always equally enjoyable, it is important in the long run. 

A simple trick when it comes to procrastination is to write down all your whims on a piece of paper instead of acting on them straight away. That is to say, you write down every time you feel like visiting a website, doing the washing-up or sorting your books by colour, and then carry on with your studies. When you have finished reading, you can bring out the list and see which of the things you still feel like doing. 

Digital temptations

One of the greatest time wasters are the digital temptations. Social media is designed to disturb you and capture your attention (Mehlsen & Hendricks, 2019, p. 97). The most effective thing is certainly to remove the smartphone or the computer entirely, so that you can concentrate on, for example, a physical book and notes on paper. However, quite a lot of study tasks take place on the computer and with access to the internet, and then you have to come up with other solutions.

There are many different add-on programs and apps that can help you manage your internet use:

• Productivity Owl – a program that can be used to block various internet sites and give access to others with a time limit. 
• News Feed Eradication – a program that removes your news feed from e.g. Facebook and Instagram, so there is nothing to scroll through. 
• Forest – Stay focused – an app that lets you plant a tree on your smartphone, which only grows as long as you do not use the phone for anything. 

There are also apps that can remind you to stand up and get moving, or that can offer encouragement so you can keep your motivation. If you try out different things, you may find a program that can help you handle your digital procrastination.  

Did you know?

Research shows that students generally experience greater well-being when they manage to build self-discipline and reduce their procrastination.

Balkis, M., & Duru, E. (2016). Procrastination, self-regulation failure, academic life satisfaction, and affective well-being: Underregulation or misregulation form. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 31(3), 439–459. 

Good study habits in the study group

Aligning expectations

A study group or a reading partner is a good opportunity to improve your learning. It is in the study group that you have the opportunity to explain and discuss academic texts and topics, and new perspectives and nuances can emerge. At the same time, the study group is one of the places where new social relationships can arise, and where you can develop your ability to collaborate.

Aligning expectations 
Study groups can work in many ways and at many levels. Some like to meet many times, others few. Some like long meetings, which suits others badly. Some like a good deal of socialising in the study group, others would rather stick to the academic side.

It is a great advantage if you find people who are at roughly the same level as you, both in terms of socialising vs. academic focus and in terms of how often you are to meet in the group. It is, on the other hand, less important whether you are at the same academic level in the study group. Even if you are perhaps at a slightly higher academic level than your fellow students, you can gain a lot of learning from explaining and putting the material in perspective for them anyway. 

Use the questions below to align expectations:

• How often are you going to meet in the study group, at what time of the day and for how long at a time?
• Are there circumstances you want to take particular account of, e.g. work, family or hobbies?
• Do you report sick to one person or to everyone in the study group?
• How will you ensure that everyone gets speaking time and gets something out of the work in the study group? 
• What is your level of ambition in the group?
• How will you ensure a good tone in the group? 

The points are adapted from the book: Andersen, M. L., & Overvad, E. T. (2020). Kunsten at studere til pædagog: Din guide til en god studietid. Akademisk Forlag. p.172

Group work

In order for the study group to become more than just a ”chat club”, it is important that at each meeting there is someone who takes responsibility for:

• Preparing the agenda for the meeting
• Helping the group get started 
• Guiding the group's conversations and work
• Writing down decisions and agreements
• Ensuring time management and a proper conclusion

(Sørensen, K. A., & Petersen, E. B. (2019). Projektgruppen—Hvordan gør vi?. Samfundslitteratur. p. 65)

This applies both when you use each other as a reading group and when you have to write an assignment together.
The group must agree among themselves from time to time, or for shorter periods at a time, who takes this responsibility. It is important that the responsibility rotates, so that everyone tries what it means to ensure progress and structure at the meetings.

When you are facing a written assignment, it is important that you plan the assignment in detail in terms of what the different sections are to contain and how they are to relate to each other.

After that it can be a good idea to divide the sections between you. Be careful to discuss and give feedback on each other's sections and products on an ongoing basis. That teaches both the person giving feedback and the person who wrote the text more, and it produces better and more coherent assignments.

Here are some activities that can help you structure the work with study reading in the group:

Hold talk rounds

• Each group member is given a certain number of minutes to express their perspective on a given text. Only when everyone has spoken in the agreed time can it be discussed freely (Larsen, M. E., Matthiassen, J., Ørnbøll, J. K., Forchammer, J. B., & Refsgård, R. C. B. (2020). Skriv opgaver på socialrådgiveruddannelsen. Samfundslitteratur)

Hold discussion rounds

You can discuss a text on the basis of:

• Which other texts have you read for today or for last time, and how do the texts interact?
• What role could the text play in the exam?
• What do you think your teacher would say about the text and why?
• Which concepts and themes do you need to remember from the text?
• What notes have you each written on the text?

(Rienecker, L., & Jørgensen, P. S. (2018). Studiehåndbogen: For studiestartere på videregående uddannelser (3rd edition). Samfundslitteratur. p. 157)

Share notes    

• Divide the responsibility for taking notes on different texts between you.
• Share the finished notes and possibly present the content to each other. 
• It is, however, a good idea for all group members to read or skim all the texts.

Give presentations to each other

• In the study group you can take turns giving presentations to each other. That way each of you is forced to get to grips a little more thoroughly with selected material.

Did you know?

Research shows that studying together with others makes it easier to understand and remember academic material. 

Tomes, J. L., Wasylkiw, L., & Mockler, B. (2011). Studying for success: Diaries of students’ study behaviours. Educational Research and Evaluation, 17(1), 1–12.

Feedback

An important part of working in a study group is receiving and giving feedback. Often it is written work that you need feedback on, and here the focus can be on both form (the way you have structured your assignment) and content (whether the assignment's academic points appear clear and well supported).

Studies show that you learn more from getting feedback during the writing process  than on the finished assignment. When you get feedback on an assignment you are still working on, you have time to consider the feedback and incorporate it into the assignment. If you only get the feedback when the assignment is ready or almost ready for submission, it can be difficult to take the feedback on board and to contemplate any changes other than inserting an extra comma here and there (Andersen, M. L., & Overvad, E. T. (2020). Kunsten at studere til pædagog: Din guide til en god studietid. Akademisk Forlag. p. 197)

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If it feels exposing for you to show your unstructured notes and half-finished study products, remember that your fellow students probably feel the same way – and although it is hard, you learn more from putting yourself a little on the line and showing your half-finished products.

It can also help to think of the text as a product that is separate from you as a person. It is the text that gets feedback, not you.

Good advice for you when giving feedback:

Do it:

• Kindly – point out the positive. 
• Concretely – the more specifically you can point to what makes you say what you say, the easier it is for the recipient to use. 
• Constructively – rather give suggestions for changes than point out weaknesses.

Good advice for you when receiving feedback:

• Present the topic of your assignment
• Specify what you need feedback on
• Say where you are in your process
• See whether you can stay quiet while you receive the feedback. You often feel like commenting or defending yourself along the way, but that can mean you do not take in all the feedback giver's points.
• Finish by asking clarifying questions and discussing different points of view between you.

von Müllen, R. (2018). Få og giv feedback. In L. Rienecker & P. S. Jørgensen (Eds.), Studiehåndbogen: For studiestartere på videregående uddannelser (3rd edition, pp. 161–165). Samfundslitteratur.

If it feels difficult to get started giving each other feedback, you can begin by pointing out three things that work well in the text and three things that could be improved.

Dealing with conflicts

All study groups will experience conflicts during their collaboration, and that is not dangerous. What matters is how you handle them. A study group often goes through four phases, from when it is established until it works optimally. The phases can be useful to know in order to understand the challenges and conflicts you often run into in a study group – and to understand that if the challenges are handled constructively, the study group can come out stronger on the other side.

In the Forming phase the group begins to take shape. Perhaps there are people in the group who need to assert themselves particularly, and others who hold back a little. This is where the first working patterns and structures are established, but often on the basis of slightly too idealistic ideas about the collaboration in the study group. 

Storming phase is the conflict-filled phase. This is where hidden agendas and personal ambitions suddenly become clear. If the conflicts in this phase are handled constructively, there is a basis for a strong and fruitful group structure.

In the Norming phase the different roles and areas of responsibility are clarified, and the group becomes strong enough to experiment with different forms of collaboration.

In the Performing phase the group has achieved a common identity, you are satisfied with working together, and you can set common goals in the group.
Tuckman as reproduced in: Andersen, M. L., & Overvad, E. T. (2020). Kunsten at studere til pædagog: Din guide til en god studietid. Akademisk Forlag pp. 166-167. 

Good advice for handling and nipping conflicts in the bud:

• Agree that it is everyone's responsibility to speak up if they do not think the group work is working optimally.
• Regularly hold a well-being round in the group, where everyone gets the chance to say how they think it is going.
• Seek help if you cannot handle the conflict yourselves. Reach out to your student counsellor or teacher; it can help to have an impartial person as a mediator.  

Good advice for you as a group member:

• Take responsibility. It is also your responsibility that things get done and that the collaboration works.
• Speak up when your boundaries are crossed, or when there are things you do not think work in the group.
• Be constructive in your criticism. Always focus on the matter at hand and never on the person
• Practise seeing things from your fellow students' point of view and try to accept that people are different.

Your wellbeing as a student

Being a student is a multifaceted experience, and during your studies you will go through the entire emotional register and experience joy, pride and happiness, but also frustration, pressured periods and being overwhelmed by impressions. A good student life is not only about passing exams and finishing, but also about thriving while you study.

Here you can get a couple of pieces of good advice for making the most of your time as a student.  

Get involved
It is a good idea to get involved in life on your programme. First and foremost it is about showing up and
attending classes and events.

Take the initiative, or say yes when others do, and help create a good study environment where the social side goes hand in hand with the academic side. That could for example be by
organising social events for your class, starting a cake rota or another shared tradition.  

You can also become part of the student political work or volunteer in the various committees and associations on your campus. Your programme is a good place to expand your social network, and the social side has a big impact on how well you thrive on your programme. 

Pressure to perform

Many students experience the pressure to perform in one way or another during their studies. Some feel pressured by their teachers', families' or fellow students' expectations, but most often they feel most pressured by their own expectations.

We cannot help comparing ourselves with others, but it is not constructive, since we do not know what others bring with them and what else they are struggling with. If you have very high expectations of yourself and demand that all aspects of your study effort be perfect, you can easily become overwhelmed, stressed and unhappy. 

Instead try to focus on:

• having realistic expectations of yourself
• planning your time so that there is also room for fun
• spending your energy on the part of your studies that you are truly passionate about
• not being afraid to fail. Failing is part of the learning process

Be good to yourself, and remember to show yourself self-care. Use nature to recharge, take part in social communities and look after yourself and your physical and mental health. 

Did you know?

Research shows that the fear of failure can lead to poor well-being, and that you can counteract this by instead striving for success on a foundation of optimism and belief in your own worth.

Martin, A. J., & Marsh, H. W. (2003). Fear of Failure: Friend or Foe? Australian Psychologist, 38(1), 31–38.

You are not alone

If you feel overwhelmed on your programme, reach out:

• Talk to your teacher about how you can prioritise, so that you get the most important things done first
• Talk to your fellow students; they are in the same boat as you and can support and help you 
• Talk to your student counsellor, who can advise and refer you to other options
• Talk to student organisations, helplines and student counselling services. There are various services in most student towns

Use your network to help you through your studies. You don't have to do it all on your own.