{"id":704,"date":"2013-12-02T18:06:47","date_gmt":"2013-12-02T23:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/?p=704"},"modified":"2014-01-21T14:56:49","modified_gmt":"2014-01-21T19:56:49","slug":"if-your-text-book-looks-like-the-offspring-of-a-rainbow-youre-doing-something-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/2013\/12\/02\/if-your-text-book-looks-like-the-offspring-of-a-rainbow-youre-doing-something-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"If your text book looks like the offspring of a rainbow, YOU\u2019RE DOING SOMETHING WRONG!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Your<\/a>

Your friends at Sharpie want you to ‘highlight what’s right’!<\/p><\/div>\n

All students love to highlight. It’s easy, requires little time, and feels manageable. Though this study method may feel productive, does it actually enhance learning?<\/p>\n

In a recent review of the literature, Dunlosky et al. (2013) reference several studies that show the potential benefits but overall disadvantages of highlighting.<\/p>\n

Evidence that highlighting is a no-go:<\/p>\n

Here is one of the experiments that have tested the effectiveness of highlighting. The study consisted of 3 groups: the control (students who just read the designated text), active highlighters (those who were free to highlight as much text), and the passive highlighters (those who read only the highlighted portions by active highlighters).
\nAfter this phase, the three groups reviewed the material one week later for 10 minutes. They were then tested on the material. The results showed that the control group performed better than the passive\/active highlighting groups.
\nEven though the control condition was most effective, the advantage that active highlighters had over the passive group was that highlighting requires extra processing of the material. The highlighting groups answered particularly well on questions concerning text that was highlighted. This is known as the isolation effect. Studies show that “marked text promotes later memory for the marked material\u201d (Dunlosky et al., 2013). The problem with the isolation effect is that information not highlighted is neglected during evaluation.<\/p>\n

More problems with highlighting:<\/p>\n

The quality of the highlighting is a variable that can affect the effectiveness of this study strategy. There is a lot of variability of what information is or isn’t considered important by students. Students are also not aware of what an appropriate amount of highlighting is. Over-highlighting makes marked text less defined. Studies show that if students only underline a key sentence per paragraph, recall is higher compared to the no-underlining control group (Dunlosky et al., 2013). Thus, less highlighting might help recall.
\nHowever, a persistent problem with highlighting is students’ unawareness of what the critical concepts are. In one study, when critical concepts were already highlighted for students, exam scores increased. But when students highlighted material themselves, it was difficult for them to distinguish what was or wasn’t critical. In regards to comprehension, studies show that underlining is detrimental to making later inferences. Overall, underlining draws attention to individual concepts (facts) but does not facilitate the big-picture concepts. Further studies have shown that underlining is more associated with concepts that may be on a multiple-choice exam.<\/p>\n

What conditions give highlighting a fighting chance?:<\/p>\n

The effectiveness of highlighting can be dependent upon prior knowledge of material. Studies show that students who previously had knowledge of the topic benefited more from active highlighting than those who had no prior knowledge. In one study, the potential to highlight effectively was measured when given the incentive to highlight well. Half of the students tested were told that they would receive a 5-dollar bonus for effectively highlighting key terms. The ones with this incentive benefited during testing versus the ones who did not receive a monetary bonus. This shows that people have the capacity to highlight effectively (Dunlosky et al., 2013).<\/p>\n

I don’t want this blog to leave you thinking, “My life is a lie! How can I as a moral being ever highlight again knowing that it won’t enhance my learning?!” We all like to highlight. The pretty colors make us feel good about ourselves. So don’t feel guilty about using this study technique; instead, be open to other study methods along with improved methods of highlighting. Experiments show that proper training on highlighting improved performance on test scores. So there is hope! The nutshell of this blog: limit highlighting to only key terms, think about the important concepts\/the big picture, and most importantly, don\u2019t turn your paper into rainbow offspring.<\/p>\n

If you want to review the original paper to learn more about effective study strategies, you can go\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You can also check out other blog posts by following the tags “Testing Effect” and “Academics” or looking at the “Education” category.<\/p>\n

Reference<\/p>\n

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<\/em>, 4-58.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All students love to highlight. It’s easy, requires little time, and feels manageable. Though this study method may feel productive, does it actually enhance learning? In a recent review of the literature, Dunlosky et al. (2013) reference several studies that show the potential benefits but overall disadvantages of highlighting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5479,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60348],"tags":[112],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5479"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":969,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions\/969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}