College student study habits: Initial patterns and implications

Abstract

This paper investigated whether or not there were any consistent patterns in the study habits of college students and whether or not college students studied differently than university students. Results showed that high-achieving students self-reported coming to class regularly, and they frequently used elaborative study techniques (e.g., relating readings to lecture) which have been related to better memory performance in previously published studies (Craik & Lockhart, 1972; Gurung, et al., 2010). However, these high-achieving students were still weak in their use of metacognitive skills in their studying (e.g., reviewing the questions they answered incorrectly). These results were compared to a study by Gurung et al. (2010), which used the same questions as this study to identify patterns. The comparison between university and college students is an important first step in better understanding how different types of students study and whether the effectiveness of their strategies differ. Future research should replicate this study using a larger sample of college students.