Active recall is the process of a person continuously testing themselves on a particular topic from questions they have created.
Currently 82% of college students rely on rereading as a study strategy, despite researchers ranking it as one of the least effective study methods in existence.
Active recall is commonly practiced in a self-directed manner through self-generated questions and flashcards.
Since the first study was done on active recall in 1948, only one has been done since, that was in 2016 and it showed relatively little information about how it works in the human brain.
So, here’s how it works:
When a student reads his or her notes, the Angular Gyrus and the Fusiform Area in the brain analyse the words and interpret them. Once this is done, the data is then stored in the students Hippocampus as a memory.
The best way to develop and ‘solidify’ a memory is by repeatedly exercising the hippocampus.
Rereading stimulates the analysis and interpretation areas of the brain but not the hippocampus, and so this is why active recall is superior to rereading as it embeds data into a student’s memory.
The best way to develop a strong memory so that information and content can be remembered for an exam is by stimulating the hippocampus through different methods of active recall.
Here are a couple of the best active recall methods:
The first and most common technique of active recall is where a student repeatedly tests oneself using flashcards. Flashcards are essentially a double-sided piece of card or paper with a question on one side and the answer to the question on the other side.
The second-best technique is practice exam questions and using mark schemes to embed answers and question formats into the hippocampus.