Study Skills Report: Techniques for Higher Education Success

This report delves into crucial study skills essential for success in higher education. It begins by emphasizing the importance of goal setting, both short-term and long-range, and the design of effective study plans. The report then explores various learning strategies and techniques aimed at improving memory retention and understanding, including representational imagery, elaborative interrogation, acronyms, and concept mapping. Furthermore, it discusses techniques for building comprehension and retention of knowledge, such as discussing reading comprehension, encouraging active thinking, and utilizing visual aids. The report also covers the use of library information and media services. Overall, the report provides a comprehensive overview of study skills, offering practical advice for students seeking to enhance their learning and achieve academic excellence. The report also highlights the importance of pre-existing knowledge, expert learning, and practical guidance to students.

Study skills for higher
education

Table of Contents.
Table of Contents..................................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
LO1 Set short term and long range goals and to design an appropriate plan of study....................3
LO3 Acquire knowledge of learning strategies and techniques to improve memory retention and
understanding how people learn......................................................................................................4
LO2 Identify techniques for building comprehension and retention...............................................6
LO4 Use of library information and media services........................................................................8
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Study skills are the skills that are needed by an individual in order to study and learn efficiently.
Thus, these study skills are the very much important for transferring life skills. In this report it has
been discussed the learning styles. As by one of the scholar, learning styles are the condition which
enables learner to perceive, process, store as well as to recall the learning contents. Therefore, for
improving individuals learning as well as to increase the academic achievements of an individual, it
is very essential to pay attention towards the individual’s differences & learning characteristics by
the teachers or the instructors. Moreover, in this report it has been discussed that goal setting is very
mush essential for achieving learning processes. Additionally, in this report it has been discussed the
concept of comprehension and retentions of knowledge. Thus, this report tells that the reading skills
has the spectrum which has its span from lower order skills such as understanding (comprehension)
& remembering (retention) to higher order skills such as to analyse and evaluate the knowledge
(Assiter, 2017).
Assessment 1
LO1 Set short term and long range goals and to design an appropriate plan of study.
According to various researchers it has been found that setting of a goal is very much
essential for achieving learning process. That means if an individual wants to achieve success in
their study, then they need to set goal initially. As achievement of goal is totally dependent upon the
selection of appropriate action. Therefore, setting a goal by an individual encourages it to get self
improvements in the different aspects of learning which eventually plays an important role
decision-making which is related to mental process.
Moreover, it has been understood that for achievement of success in both academic and the
professional career, the concept of goal setting theory is essential. Thus, it is essential for the
students or individuals to understand the concepts of goal setting theory in order to achieve the
desired goal (Cottrell, 2019).
The short term goals of the study
Progress in researches or thesis writing, completing graduation requirement, plan to study
abroad, designing on a major, making connections with the mentors and focusing on the grades.
The long range goals of the study
For an individual, which plans to study, has a very difficult to explicit to name long term
success goal. Therefore, long range goals are determined by the individuals short term priorities,
along with what matters the individual chooses the path during college or after the post graduation
years.

There are several factors through which the individual suppose to think about its long term
goals with the questions such as how important is the value for money to it, is inter culture dialogue
& international travel is important to it as well as will the individual will sacrifice for some
comforts, for its artistic career.
Appropriate plan of study can be designed as
For a student, an appropriate plan to study can be designed by considering the following
sequence starting from making of study plan, followed by creating a structured goal, then
developing study goal timescale, and then the individual must exploit technology followed by
setting the study goal and creation of flexible study plan and more over never loosing motivation.
Additionally, the individual must take usage of online study tools for studying as well as can
collaborate with a study partner to plan to study. Moreover, being positive as well as testing self
knowledge regularly is an additional advantage. Lastly, the plan of study includes establishment of a
study routine. Thus, this is the approximate plan of study which an individual can use in order to
study for higher education by setting the plan of study.
LO3 Acquire knowledge of learning strategies and techniques to improve memory retention
and understanding how people learn.
Knowledge of learning strategies
Representational imagery is one of the most common as well as useful method for
remembering information as it uses the mental imagination. This strategy could be used for
remembering facts.
Another strategy to knowledge of learning is elaborative interrogation, which is the
strategy used to enhance memory for facts. Thus, involves reading a reading a fact which has to
remember.
An acronym is the strategy of knowledge of learning in which there are series of letters,
where each letter spells a word. For example USA for United States of America.
Keyword method, this strategy is used for enhancing memory for definitions of scientific
words or for foreign language vocabulary.
Summarizing is the strategy used for knowledge of learning where the students only need
to remember the general theme of the report as well as the main idea of the report. Thus, this
strategy enhances the memory for the main idea (Barrable, Papadatou-Pastou and Tzotzoli, 2018).
One of the effective strategies is the concept mapping, as this strategy is used for helping
the students in developing the knowledge of concepts of complex prose.
Techniques for memory retention

Usage of visual aids is the basic technique used for memory retention as this technique help
in retrieving the information easily.
For an individual, in order to retain what it has learned, seeking out demonstrations is used
to understand the topic what is inside out. Thus, demonstrations are very effective technique for
memory retentions.
Participation in group discussion is another technique in which when the individual is
involved it tends to memorize the information, which helps it in long term retentions.
Putting into practice technique is just like cementing information into the mind, this means
practicing tends to create fresh neutral pathway into the memory of mind.
Looking for opportunities to teach others is another technique, which means when an
individual gets expert in particular topic, then if once it tends to teach the topic to another
individual. Then it could be the best way through which it could make the concept through in its
mind.
Relating new material with what is already known helps in memory retention as in this
way the information gets sticks in the memory which is connected to something which is already
known.
Making efforts to retrieve information from the memory. It is always suggested to an
individual not to be too quick to consult to Google whenever it forgets something. Thus, it is always
suggested that try to remember from what is already stored in the brain.
Reading out loud is sometimes a better chance to memorize the information. Researchers
showed that when an individual tends to read it loud then there are better chances of memorising the
information, rather that reading it silently.
Writing by hand as well as embracing the mistakes is another technique for memory retentions
(Johansson, 2017).
.
Understanding how people learn
How people learn can be understood by
Pre-existing knowledge
Through cognitive sciences it has been suggested that people tends to construct new knowledge
from the information based on what they already know as well as believe. When an student is taught
in the school, the knowledge it perceive, organize as well as interpret is totally depend upon the
range of prior knowledge, experience and belief it gets before it got taught in the classroom.
The nature of expertise
Being expert can be in many ways. Understanding expertise help to understand what could the

result for successful learning, which could be implicated for teaching practice. One of the examples
of expert knowledge is experts tend to notice the feature as well as meaningful pattern of
information which is not at all noticeable by a novice.
Assessment 2
LO2 Identify techniques for building comprehension and retention.
It is the fact that people needs practical guidance before they read and gain knowledge as well as
understanding. Techniques to build comprehension and retention of knowledge are
Discuss reading comprehension
Discussing reading comprehension tends to build the understanding and thus, eventually, eventually
helps in retaining the knowledge of comprehension.
Practice what you preach
Teachers tend to ask their students to improve their reading comprehension which is crucial but on
the other hand they tend to take tests in order to have root memorization, which is a backward
reasoning. Thus, it is advisable to the teachers to take essay tests for the students in order to know
what actually they had learned. Therefore, this is the technique used for building comprehension
and retention of knowledge (Hagedorn and Kuznetsova, 2016).
Discuss each assignment
Before reading the assignment, it is advisable to teachers to discuss each assignment, what the
students will be going to learn through this assignment. Moreover, for building comprehensions and
retention of knowledge, the teachers could ask the individuals, several questions. And even though,
the teachers could encourage the students to undergo group discussion in order to build through
understanding concept of knowledge.
Urge thinking before reading
This is the technique for building comprehension and retentions, where the individual is advisable
to think before reading. This could be achieved by, if an individual initially focus on what would be
the outcome of learning, it could better understand what it will going to read. Moreover, in this way
the learner gets more selective while reading an essay, rather than trying to comprehend every
sentence of the essay.
Teach goal setting
One of the techniques for building comprehension and retention is teaching by goal setting, which
means if an individual is taught for setting a goal for its career i.e. where it wants to reach in the
near future, or what are its long term prediction where it want to see itself in future. Thus, goal
setting is very much essential for an individual in order to map its path of mind.

Urge thinking while reading
Reading continuously does not tends to give better understanding, rather than thinking while
reading. Thus, it is always advisable to the individual that for building better comprehension and
retention of knowledge the individual must urge to think while reading in order to acquire better
understanding of the information than only reading the piece of information.
Urge note taking
Teachers at school, colleges or universities always enforce the students to make notes of their
learning. So through notes, the individual tends to retain the overview of information which is
taught to it. Thus, encouraging an individual to stop reading, as soon as, if it has read something
important and urges it to make notes of the important information gained by it.
Telling the followers to plan ahead
For building, better comprehension and retention of knowledge, it is advisable to individual after
making the essential notes, the individual must use this notes of important information in class room
discussion, oral presentations as well as for the tests and reports (Wilson, 2018).
Recommend visualizing
To understand a passage in the text, it is advisable that creating mental images or visualizing a
setting or event is better to memorize the information. There fore, researchers had found that for
building better comprehension and retention of knowledge, the individual must study the
information by text photos and captions.
Assigning summaries
Assign summaries for what has been learned through the entire assignment sometimes sounds like
an individual is forced to do a lot of work. But, it must be always recommended to an individual to
summarise the whole information what it has learned in order to have better understanding as well
as fast retention of information whenever required.
Asking questions
Asking question is one of another technique to built better comprehension and retention of
information. As when something is taught to an individual, it is always recommended by the tutor to
ask questions, when and whenever required in order to gain better understanding of what is learned
through the lesson by the tutor.
LO4 Use of library information and media services.
The usage of library information and media services can be described as
Use of library information
Libraries are the department of information. Libraries are the centre where an individual or group

tends to collect or preserve the important information. Therefore, the information stored in libraries
is not only for the current generation, but also preserve information’s for the future generations. It is
recommended for the publishers to make a copy of their published book, for free of charge. There
are several types of libraries are present such as public libraries, libraries in educational institutions,
university libraries as well as libraries in corporate sector.
For studying skills in order to have higher studies, the usages of libraries are
Libraries in educational institutes
These libraries are developed in order to provide the wide range of information and services relating
to the educational objective of the parent institute. School libraries tend to keep the books relating
to the support of curriculum. Moreover, sometimes they had the collection of books and materials
which encourages reading as well as spirit of equity, for the needs of teachers as well as
administrative staff.
University libraries
These are the advanced version of school libraries, as they have larger collection of information in
the form of either electronic journal as well as they these libraries facilitate with the more
sophisticated searching tool which is available and helpful for both students and faculty (Drysdale
and et.al, 2016).
Use of media services
Usage of media services for gaining knowledge is the opportunity presented by the technology.
Through technological advancement, or with the help of internet, it has become very easier to gain
information and knowledge of various sectors remotely. Thus, it is the internet that has facilitated
the individual acquires the knowledge of various fields. Earlier, people used to visit the libraries in
order to gain information. But due to technological advancement, all the information got clubbed in
form of small piece. Where this information can be gained with the help of small devices such as
mobile phones. Therefore, it is the technology that had gradually transformed the lives of library
users, who had largely, tends to visit the libraries for information materials into the modernisation,
where information is gained through media services.
The information stored in media services has the updated information, which is sometimes not
available in the libraries. Thus, these day scholars or researchers tends to acquire knowledge
through media services rather than that to traditional libraries as it is some times faster source to
gain knowledge compared to the information gained through libraries.

CONCLUSION
This report can be concluded as, study skills are the skills that are needed by an individual in order
to study and learn efficiently. Thus, these study skills are the very much important for transferring
life skills. In this report it has been discussed about the learning styles. As by one of the scholar,
learning styles are the condition which enables learner to perceive, process, store as well as to recall
the learning contents. Therefore, for improving individuals learning as well as to increase the
academic achievements of an individual, it is very essential to pay attention towards the individual’s
differences & learning characteristics by the teachers or the instructors. Moreover, in this report it
has been discussed that goal setting is very mush essential for achieving learning processes.
Additionally, it has been discussed about the concept of comprehension and retentions of
knowledge. Thus, this report tells that the reading skills has the spectrum which has its span from
lower order skills such as understanding (comprehension) & remembering (retention) to higher
order skills such as to analyse and evaluate the knowledge (Paterson, 2016).

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Assiter, A., 2017. Transferable skills in higher education. Routledge.
Cottrell, S., 2019. The study skills handbook. Macmillan International Higher Education.
Barrable, A., Papadatou-Pastou, M. and Tzotzoli, P., 2018. Supporting mental health, wellbeing and
study skills in Higher Education: an online intervention system. International journal of
mental health systems, 12(1), p.54.
Johansson, E., 2017. Assessing for Higher-Order Thinking skills: An international study of
university teachers' perception of developing e-assessment that fosters higher level
outcomes.
Hagedorn, L.S. and Kuznetsova, I., 2016. Developmental, remedial, and basic skills: Diverse
programs and approaches at community colleges. New Directions for Institutional Research,
2015(168), pp.49-64.
Wilson, J.D., 2018. Student learning in higher education. Routledge.
Drysdale and et.al, 2016. Psychological attributes and work-integrated learning: An international
study. Higher education, skills and work-based learning, 6(1), pp.20-34.
Paterson, R., 2016. The accidental global professional: A series of conflicts in teaching academic
skills in higher education. Educate~, 16(1), pp.3-14.