If you want to ace your exams, you must know about and avoid what psychologists call the illusion of learning. Sadly, it is something that even students who spend countless hours studying can fall victim to.
Put simply, you fall victim to the illusion of learning when you think you know more than you really do. Yet, if you are like most students, you are not a fool. So why does this happen to so many students, and what can you do about it?
Why Do You Get the Illusion of Learning?
3 factors lead students just like you to hold an illusion about how well you have the material.
Fluency Not Learning
Many students reread their textbooks and notes as a key part of their study efforts. Rereading leads to greater fluency. Put another way, each time you read the same thing, it becomes easier to read.
Students unconsciously interpret this fluency or ease of reading as increased understanding. But fluency does not reflect such learning.
Familiarity Not Learning
As you reread your notes and textbooks, you also become more familiar with the key terms used.
Students tend to interpret this familiarity as learning unconsciously. But often, that is not the case.
You have a sense of familiarity when you recognise an actor in a show you are watching, but you cannot recall where from. Exams often ask you to recall things you have learned, not just to find them familiar.
The Overconfidence Effect
Psychologists call the final factor that causes you to fall prey to the illusion of learning overconfidence effect.
Humans tend to believe we are better than we are, which includes a belief that we understand more than we really do.
How to Avoid the Illusion of Learning
So now you understand that you may fall victim to the illusion of learning. Here are 3 potent things you can do about it.
Testing
Test yourself or have someone test your understanding. If you have an exam, testing yourself gives you a reliable indicator of how you will go.
In other words, practice testing gives an accurate idea of what you know and understand.
To test yourself, you can:
- Make and use flashcards for key terms
- Complete and mark chapter review questions in your textbook
- Do (and mark) any practice tests your teacher or tutor gives you
- Recreate diagrams (e.g. concept maps) from memory (with and without cues)
If your real exam includes short or long-answer questions, practice doing these as well.
Feedback
Testing lets you know how much you have learned. Surprisingly, testing also helps you not to forget those things before the exam.
But testing is far more potent if you use the results as feedback. Then, use that feedback to spring into further learning.
In other words, relearn the material you got wrong. Then, retest yourself and repeat as necessary.
Think Hard When Studying
When studying or relearning the material you didn’t know, you must think hard about what you are trying to understand.
- What does it mean?
- How does it connect to related ideas?
Activities such as outlining and visually connecting related ideas (Venn diagrams, concept maps, hierarchies, etc.) help you better understand and remember the material.
As mentioned earlier, test yourself again and repeat after relearning the relevant material.
Avoiding the Illusion of Learning in a Nutshell
You and other students often hold an illusion that you understand and remember more than you really do. Psychologists call this the illusion of learning.
3 things lead to such an illusion:
- Misinterpreting improved fluency as evidence of learning
- Mistaking increased familiarity with being able to recall material
- A human tendency to have more confidence in ourselves than warranted
3 potent ways to identify and address the illusion of learning before it is too late involve:
- Testing yourself in ways like your real test to see how you really go
- Using incorrect results as feedback about what you need to relearn
- Using strategies that involve thinking hard when restudying these things
