How Studying Outside Could Make You a Better Student

 

Picture this...

It’s noon on a beautiful spring day. You want to go out and enjoy the sunshine, but you’ve got an exam the next day and really need to get in some good study time. Panicked, you try to find a seat in student centre that your tuition so generously funds – nothing. The libraries must surely have space, you think to yourself. Much to your dismay, the library is also packed solid. 

In your last desperate attempt to find a place to settle down and get some reading done, you find yourself on a picnic table just outside of a campus building. Unbeknownst to you, you’re actually better-off this way. 

 NATURE AND MENTAL HEALTH      

We have all heard of going outside for some ‘fresh air’ when things inside get intense. ‘Getting the stink blown off you’ to calm one’s mental state is a relatively commonplace practice, but it seems like nobody is really sure why or how this came to be. It is clear that over time and especially during a pandemic, we are spending less and less time outdoors, but could this actually have negative consequences on our mental health? 

 

ECOTHERAPY is a buzz word in psychology that aims to highlight the importance of the outdoors and natural surroundings on human mental health. This idea stems from a belief that things like fresh air and proximity to greenspace can increase overall mood and general wellbeing, in contrast to the recent societal shift to the digital world. The COVID-19 pandemic has only enhanced this shift inside, encouraging people to stay indoors.

 THE STUDENT PROBLEM       

It comes as no surprise that students are a particular area of worry when it comes to mental health, and our dependence on technology certainly doesn't help. 

This is for a few reasons:

• People tend to go to university or college during young adulthood, an important transitional period that marks an increase in life stressors

• Many mental illnesses have their onset during this period

• A significant proportion of students (63%) report having feelings of “overwhelming anxiety” over the course of the school year

• Many students do not have access to (or time for) therapy and other mental health interventions

• Stress (from school or otherwise) negatively contributes to mood, student satisfaction, and academic performance 

 CAMPUS GREENSPACE: A SOLUTION?   

Over the past decade, research has made one thing clear: utilizing outdoor spaces has some significant effects on mood. More specifically, exposure to nature – even to things as small as photos – can reduce stress. This reduction of stress is also accompanied by:

• 
  Reduced blood pressure 
• 
  Reduced heart rate 
• 
  Increased brain activity 
• 
  Increased immune cell activity 
• 
  General “restorative” effects on the mind 

The best part is that using outdoor spaces has been shown to subconsciously reduce stress – this means that it plays in the background of your brain without a conscious effort! 

Student Studies 

Recent research has extended this idea specifically to students, in an attempt to address the group’s unmet needs. In an experiment with over 200 undergraduate students, students were selected to either study inside, in a windowless laboratory, or outside on campus green space. Of note, they found the following:

• Students who studied outside had less "mood disturbance" (feelings of tension, depression, anger, vigor, fatigue, and confusion) than students who studied inside 

• Students who infrequently went outside in their normal lives had the strongest decrease in mood disturbance when studying outside

• Students who frequently went outside in their normal lives were less bothered by the indoor spaces, suggesting some kind of resiliency build up from being outside

 TAKEAWAYS         

So, why bother studying outside? To put it simply, it might make you a better student.

With students reporting less stressors when studying outside, and stress being related to lower academic achievement, it’s in a student’s best interest to make use of campus green space. Even further, in terms of mental health, the subconscious aspect is key. Students already have busy schedules, so being able to passively improve mental health is arguably revolutionary. 

Now this is not to say that simply going outside will fix mental illness. However, ecotherapy can certainly be used to make the stressors of life more manageable, not just for people struggling with mental illness, but for everyone. 

References

Dorothy C. Ibes & Catherine A. Forestell (2020) The role of campus greenspace and meditation on 
    college students’ mood disturbance, Journal of American College Health, 
    https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2020.1726926
Summers, J. K., & Vivian, D. N. (2018). Ecotherapy - A Forgotten Ecosystem Service: A Review. 
    Frontiers in psychology, 9, 1389. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01389

Learn Better, Remember Longer

      Studying is a difficult, but necessary, part of the education experience. Massive, high-stakes exams are all too common in universities and encourage students to concentrate their study efforts on their subject in the days leading up to their exam, rather than gradually building and refreshing their knowledge as they progress through the course’s content. The consequence of these short, intense study days is that the knowledge gathered by the students is almost immediately forgotten shortly after the test has ended. Though this study method often yields desirable grades for the students, they do not retain the foundational skills and knowledge necessary to be successful in subsequent courses. In this cramming-and-testing education cycle, students are simply holding on to information long enough to answer any relevant exam questions so that they can get the grade they want and progress through their program. In this way, students are not learning for the sake of learning, but rather for the sake of passing. And although passing is an indispensable goal for all students, the lack of retention for course materials leaves the student poorly equipped for the challenges of more advanced material that future courses will offer. 

       Scientists have long known that spacing out learning and revisiting material that is not yet mastered can improve memory for that material, both for the test and beyond. For example, re-examining content from a class a week ago has been found to increase memory for that class’s material. Unfortunately, the education system at all levels (elementary school, high school, university, and college) heavily lends itself to high-stakes testing (in which a colossal chunk of a student’s grade is based on a few short tests). Although most students love the idea of a few quick (but tough) exams in their seemingly distant futures, the skills and knowledge gained evaporates soon after the test has ended. Even if students what to maximize their studying potential by incorporating short reviews of past material into their weekly routines, they can often become flabbergasted with the sheer volume of material that they feel they have to review – these well-intentioned students can be unsure of where to focus their studying attention.

        Enter DASH. A computerized teaching tool that takes advantage of scientific theories on memory and accounts for both individual learning styles and typical patterns of learning and forgetting. This program developed out of research jointly conducted at the University of Colorado and the University of California. DASH was created using three important aspects of the student and the study process: the Difficulty of the material, the Ability of the student, and the Study History (or how the student has studied the material in the past). These three aspects work in the computer program to review material for the student when they need it most. Based on quizzes from the previous week’s materials, the DASH program devoted a certain among of time to reviewing the necessary chapters with the student. 

To test the effectiveness of their computerized teaching tool, the researchers provided 179 eighth-grade children with computer based Spanish language instruction. Students learned Spanish during a ten week period in using each of three computerized teaching tools; the personalized DASH system, a mass chapter-by-chapter technique (that presented new material each week without review of the previous week’s material much like a standard classroom environment might), or a spaced out study technique (that would begin each new week with a brief review of the previous week’s material). A third of each of the chapter’s content was taught using each of the techniques, so that each student used each technique throughout the process (this practice reduces differences in performance that may be due to factors that are not the study techniques, like intelligence or motivation). At the end of the ten weeks of computer-based Spanish learning, the students were given an exam that tested their learning. The results showed promising support for DASH. Student answered 12 more questions correctly that were learned using DASH  compared to the mass chapter-by-chapter technique, and eight questions more than material learned using the spaced out study technique. These results show that the DASH program was able to increase knowledge about the material, thus indicating that the use of this personalized, spaced-study technique can yield better marks for students immediately after a course has finished, relative to a chapter-by-chapter technique or an impersonal spaced-study technique. 

            

       

            But what about learning beyond the course? Students were given a similar exam 28 days removed from their program to test how much knowledge they had retained. Items learned using DASH were better remembered that items learned with the chapter-by-chapter and the impersonal-spaced learning techniques nearly a month later. On average, over 16 more questions (out of 100) were answered correctly when items were learned using DASH, compared to the chapter-by-chapter technique. Ten more questions (out of 100) were answered correctly when the material was learned using DASH, compared to the impersonal-spaced learning technique. In other words, not only did DASH continue to reduce forgetting, this forgetting was still reduced 28 days after their course had ended – the advantage for DASH items broadened at the later test date – DASH content was remember more than content from other techniques. 

            Students are not retaining the skills that they acquire and the knowledge that they learn. The DASH program shows an effective learning strategy that can both improve performance on tests and increase the preservation of information taught. Although the high-stakes testing techniques of the education system are desirable for some students and easy for educators, this type of testing is associated with rapid forgetting of learning information. Unfortunately, many students view education as the progression through courses by any means necessary – not as the gradual acquisition of knowledge for better performance in the future (both in the classroom and beyond). The DASH program illustrates the effectiveness of a personalized spaced learning program and incorporates current theories of memory and differences in individual’s skill in order to formulate the ideal weekly study plan for students using the program. 

Adam Newton                                       

Lindsey, R. V., Shroyer, J. D., Pashler, H., & Mozer, M. C. (2014). Improving students’ long-term knowledge retention through personalized review. Psychological Science. In Press.