Types of Studying: Passive vs. Active

Passive Studying

Do you simply read your textbook and notes while watching Netflix? Do you find yourself highlighting words and sentences that appear significant to you without having a clear idea of what information you should focus on? If so, you may be engaging in passive studying.

Passive studying involves receiving information from instructors, textbooks, or study materials and attempting to memorize it without applying a particular strategy. Even if you find yourself highlighting information or rereading important materials, without strategies for actively constructing knowledge from that material, you're still taking a passive studying approach.

While you might feel a sense of accomplishment from rereading or highlighting, it's essential to recognize that effective test preparation goes beyond these actions. (Read The Biggest Studying Mistake You Might Be Making)to learn more about passive studying.) Don't fall into the trap of the "illusion of knowledge" (see Active Versus Passive Studying), which is a term for a false sense of understanding when, in fact, you might not truly grasp the concepts. Your goal should be to identify key concepts and organize your knowledge in a way that allows you to retain and recall information effectively during your exam. In upcoming pages, we'll discuss active studying strategies that will help you do just that.

Active Studying

Active studying occurs when you mindfully apply a more engaged and proven approach to your studying that goes beyond memorizing material. But what are some practical ways you can do this? One way is to identify the most crucial points and key concepts from your study materials, and then take notes on them. Another approach is to organize and summarize the information in your own words. There is also a method that involves creating a visual representation of information, called a graphic organizer. To learn more about how to restructure your knowledge, read the Graphic Organizers page in this guide.

An example might help you see how active and passive studying differ. Imagine that two students study and highlight words in their reading materials. How would you know which student is studying passively and which is studying actively? Perhaps the student studying passively highlights nearly all the words on the page, whereas the actively studying student highlights only key terms, definitions, and concepts. After all, if you highlight too much, then nothing stands out from anything else.  Perhaps the actively studying student also uses multiple highlighters, where one color is for keywords, another is for examples, and a third is for similarities to and differences from other key concepts, and so on.

A more thoughtful, strategic highlighting practice is just one way to study more actively; there are many others. During your review of study materials, you may want to dedicate more time to some difficult concepts. Use flashcards to focus on your weaker areas and enhance memory retention. For greater effectiveness, incorporate a spaced repetition strategy when using flashcards. To learn more about this tool, read the Flashcards page in this guide.

There's an additional strategy that may boost your confidence (and test performance) even further: imagine teaching someone else. Picture yourself explaining the material to a friend who's unfamiliar with the content. As you engage in this teaching exercise, you'll identify your weaknesses and pinpoint areas that require further study. This approach requires you to be more mindful about the content and ask important questions, such as "What would someone need to know about this topic before being able to learn anything else?" or "What terms would I need to define to help someone else understand?" or "What examples help make these ideas concrete and memorable?" If you add this approach to some of the others you'll learn in this module, you may find that you're able to integrate and memorize information much more effectively.