Another benefit of revision?

Aha! So revision is good for you?It’s this time of year when revision is on our minds and students fail to see the benefit. They feel that they will never get through the spec and they are too far away from the exam to feel they know anything. It’s a tough time for them.

They can see how revising and repeating might help them get through the exam but this recent research published by Collins ( 2014) has examined the benefits of exercising memory from a historical perspective. It’s an article on how memory has traditionally been seen as a muscle in need of exercise and promotes the repetitive learning that so often accompanies revision as being a way to strengthen memory.

It’s worth a mention to students, surely? There’s no way it can lighten their load but it might at least put a positive spin on something they see as predominantly negative. The article is not saying explicitly that revision gives you a super memory but that there seems to be an abiding argument that memory can be exercised.

Take a look at the article at

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/jhbs.21643/

Reference

Collins, A. F. (2014). Advice for improving memory: Exercising, strengthening, and cultivating natural memory, 1860-1910. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 50(1), 37-57. doi: 10.1002/jhbs.21643