Study Skills for Higher Education Report - LSC Sept 2021 Term 1

This report provides an overview of essential study skills for students in higher education, emphasizing their importance in organizing information, retaining knowledge, and applying learning effectively. It discusses various crucial skills, including discovering individual learning styles (visual, auditory, reading/writing, kinesthetic), enhancing reading comprehension, improving note-taking abilities, managing stress, fostering problem-solving and critical thinking, developing communication and active listening skills, and effectively managing self, people, and time. The report highlights the benefits of these skills in improving academic performance, building confidence, and achieving career success. Recommendations are made for students to actively develop these skills for success in higher education and beyond. Desklib provides a platform to access this document and other study resources.

Study Skills For
Higher Education

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Study skills, academic skills or strategy skills can be defined as the applied learning
approaches consisting of the set of skills required for organising and entrenching new
information, retaining and applying it. Study skills are transferable in nature means, it means that
these skills are carried by us throughout our lives and helps us to succeed everywhere. In the
following report, several crucial skills that are important for the students are discussed. An
critical evaluation and advantages of these skills are given in the report.
MAIN BODY
Study skills are set of those attributes that are needed and acquired by a student to learn
and study effectively and without delays, these skills are major source of transferable skills.
Whether someone is studying for improving their career, acquire new knowledge or gain a
qualification in any field they are supported by these skills (Buckley and Lee, 2021). These skills
helps an student to improve, develop and acquire study skills in a long term and gradual process.
There are many attributes that are considered a basic requirement to study more effectively to
achieve optimum results in their academic career. There are various skills that are taught in the
academic skills for higher education that are mentioned as under:
Discover your learning style: Each person has different abilities in themselves that are
entrenched in them by their birth. There are various learning styles that can be adopted and best
suited for an student which are visual learning, auditory learning, learning by reading or writing,
and kinaesthetic learning (Castro and Tumibay, 2021). Visual learning is the means of learning
by seeing, auditory is the ability of learners to listen and learn, learners learning by reading or
writing, and the learners that learn practically by continuous movement and actions. After careful
evaluation of self, students can considerably discover their learning styles and preferences that
most suits them. Some students may uncover that they are better in learning things, others may
prefer different learning styles in various circumstances. Some students may learn better through
books and some may learn through audio video demonstrations. Catering various learning styles
can improve learning ability of the students and raise their levels in grabbing the knowledge
more easily.
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Effective Reading Comprehension Skills: While studying, it is likely that an individual
needs to read a lot of information therefore, an individual requires to furnish this skills timely
and efficiently. It is among the essentials of learning that are required by an student (Clayton and
et. al., 2021). It is the ability of individual to effectively read texts, understand it and deploy its
meaning. The reading comprehension skill mainly depends on two crucial tasks that are ability to
decode the text or read it. Another task is understandability or comprehension which means
effectively determining the meaning of that word. These skills helps the students to study better
and learn better and achieve higher results. Lack of proper reading and comprehension would
lead to impacting the core learning ability and understanding of students about any of their
course. Hence, proper comprehension and reading skills will help students to understand
important lessons, concepts and arguments that is important for their academic career.
Enhancing Note Taking Ability: Effective note taking means inscribing the vocal
messages on the paper that can be easily understood and provides clear instructions. This ability
is among the very important abilities of students which requires considerable amount of focus on
revoking and inscribing information discussed in the classroom lectures (Goodsett, 2020). It
could be difficult for students to remember everything that is discussed in the classroom. It is
important for the student to keep and maintain legible and relevant notes, as a student may forget
vital stats and data that is discussed during the session. This will help the student to come to the
class prepared in advance and note taking requires concentration that minimizes distractions. By
attaining this skill, students can achieve excellent academic results and perform better in their
career.
Improvising Stress Management: It can be explained as the ability of individual to
handle, control and mange their levels of stressful situations and tensions. Students are
immobilised by their ability to bring out positive outcomes and their failures may lead to
stressful situations (Luo, Freeman and Stefaniak, 2020). For any student, it becomes important to
perform better and get desired results in their academic career, for this purpose they should learn
to manage their stress. The reason for stress is that of same to the reason for controlling it,
expectations of getting high results and perform better leads to tension and stress situations for an
students. These stressful situations could lead to negative impacts on the performance of
students, therefore if the students faces stressful situations they should be taught to handle and
overcome them.
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Problem Solving and Critical Thinking: It can be understood as the ability of subjects to
tackle various situations or the problems and convert them in a gainful opportunity. Whether a
student, an graduate, employee or jobless, whatever the position someone holds, they all needs to
face challenges and problems(Putz et. al., 2020). It is expected that everyone should hold
problem solving, analytical and critical thinking ability to solve and face the problems tactfully
to turn these problems into gainful opportunities. This process or skill will help an individual to
analyse and discover the problems, create mapping and pathways to find solutions of those
problems. Students faces many problems in their academic career as well as further in their lives
that hinders their growth and success. To avoid these road blocks and become successful and
effectively reach their goals, an student needs to obtain this skill. A student should continuously
foster their passion and skills in problem solving that would help them overcome many problems
during their academic years as well as the working years.
Communication and Active Listening: It is essential part of coordination and
collaboration of interactions among the students. Communication can be defined as the sharing
and transmission of data with the help of verbal and actionable implants among people. It
involves interaction of people through direct contact, virtually and telephonic mediums(Rea‐
Sandin and et. al., 2021). Good communication skills are needed by an student to give optimum
performance in their interviews, competitions and enhance influencing ability. Good
communication skills involves active/careful listening, understanding body language, confidence
in speech, respect and use of relevant medium for communication. To communicate properly an
student needs to listen carefully with open mildness including attention, feedbacks,
appropriation, being less judgemental and eye contact to avoid conflicts among each other. Good
communication skills are important for every student because this shows their ability to influence
people, lead teams, work in groups, clear interviews and be an overall effective person.
Managing Self, People And Time: It can be explained as the ability to manage,
influence, collaborate and organise self along with the others to attain timely objectives. For
bringing any sort of success in any activity of academics the students must first learn to manage
themselves which means manage their actions (Tomlinson and Jackson, 2021). The students
envisage to achieve success in their academics but this can only be done through putting a plan,
establishing/evaluating a route of action and move on that path to achieve success. There are 24
hours in a day and utilisation of this time in the best way possible to sharpen the abilities of
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individual should be well known. A student should manage almost every crucial hour to nurture
themselves and manage study time, their activities to achieve educational success. Lack of
appropriate time and self management, could devastate the growth opportunities of the students
leading to their failures in making good impacts on people and failing in interviews.
RECOMMENDATIONS
For higher education, it is quite important for the students to have their academic skills as it can
help the students to improve their ability of doing various tasks. the students must involves in
discovering their learning as well as styles. As learning of the study skills generally will not only
aid the higher institutions but it can also aid the students to succeed in their life. A good study
skills usually enhances the confidence, the self esteem as well as the competence of an
individual. It can also decreases the level of anxiety that particularly deals with the deadlines and
tests as well. It is recommended that having a good study skills generally can increase the
capability or an ability to acquire or learn as well as retain the knowledge. In addition to this, by
developing an effective study skill, an individual may be able to cut down the number of hours
which they usually spend while studying as well as leaving the more time for many other things
in their life. It is also recommended for the students to improve their learning as well as cognitive
skills so that they can effectively resolve the issues and can effectively enhance their critical
thinking also. Furthermore, the children's who uses an effective study skills may feel that their
work as well as the efforts are quite worthwhile.
CONCLUSION
In the following report it has been understood that study skills or academic skills are
applied learning approaches consisting of the set of skills required for organising and entrenching
new information, retaining and applying it for growth of a students in their higher studies. The
following report presents understandability of various academic skills like, managing self and
time, communication, learning-behaviour, problem solving, note taking and many other skills are
crucial to develop an student into a effective learner. It can be concluded by the following report
that these skills are crucial for growth and developing life and career of the students.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Buckley, P. and Lee, P., 2021. The impact of extra-curricular activity on the student
experience. Active Learning in Higher Education, 22(1). pp.37-48.
Castro, M. D. B. and Tumibay, G. M., 2021. A literature review: efficacy of online learning
courses for higher education institution using meta-analysis. Education and Information
Technologies, 26(2). pp.1367-1385.
Clayton, R. J. and et. al., 2021. Associations Between Social Skills, Inattention, and English
Vocabulary Skills of Preschool Latinx Dual Language Learners. Journal of Research in
Childhood Education. pp.1-20.
Goodsett, M., 2020. Best practices for teaching and assessing critical thinking in information
literacy online learning objects. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 46(5). p.102163.
Luo, T., Freeman, C. and Stefaniak, J., 2020. “Like, comment, and share”—professional
development through social media in higher education: A systematic review. Educational
Technology Research and Development, 68(4). pp.1659-1683.
Putz, L. M. et. al., 2020. Can gamification help to improve education? Findings from a
longitudinal study. Computers in Human Behavior, 110. p.106392.
Rea‐Sandin, G. and et. al., 2021. Educational attainment polygenic score predicts inhibitory
control and academic skills in early and middle childhood. Genes, Brain and
Behavior, 20(7). p.e12762.
Tomlinson, M. and Jackson, D., 2021. Professional identity formation in contemporary higher
education students. Studies in Higher Education, 46(4). pp.885-900.
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