Many Physiotherapy students can feel overwhelmed at times with the content they need to learn during the academic year in preparation for clinical placements, practical and written examinations. More often than not, the sensation of feeling overwhelmed comes from difficulty finding an effective learning strategy. To help you or a friend study Physiotherapy more efficiently, we will explain three simple and evidence-based learning strategies to make your learning far more productive.
1. Mnemonics
A mnemonic is any tool that helps your long-term memory such as acronyms or mental imagery, for example, a keyword placed beside a memorable item. Mnemonics have been shown to produce far greater knowledge retention compared with rote memorisation (Eg. reading and re-reading dermatomes and myotomes until completely memorised ) across many different situations.¹ Although, they are generally more effective when used for topics that involve learning chunks/lists of information rather than understanding processes or concepts.
If you make your own mnemonics this can be even more effective if the content you are learning is simple and contains multiple keywords. If you are able to create your own mnemonic that accurately represents the content you are learning, this is more likely to stick in your long-term memory. However, mnemonics made by other people are likely to be more effective if you are inexperienced at making mnemonics.
2. Explain content to yourself
Getting into the habit of asking yourself “why” and prompting yourself to explain an anatomical structure or the physiological benefits of a particular intervention for example can help you to deeply understand what at first seems to be a random fact. Evidence has shown that asking “why” whilst reading individual facts is much more useful than re-reading as it can improve your recall of the information and develop your ability to solve problems related to a given fact.² It is important to bear in mind that the benefit of explaining content to yourself generally works best when your explanations are of sufficient quality. This means that self-explanation is ideal when you are revisiting content you have previously learned or you are learning content that is closely related to another topic that you already understand.
3. Use concept maps
In concept mapping, concepts are arranged geographically and related concepts are connected by lines. Creating your own concept maps or studying from a concept map might be more effective than writing notes or reading summaries from a textbook or website. However, studies have mixed conclusions about the significance concept maps elicit on long-term memory.³ Despite the uncertainty about its utility for long-term memory, concept mapping can help you visualise how much progress you have made with your learning and encourage you to integrate theoretical knowledge with clinical knowledge which is especially useful on clinical placement. A concept map looks like this:
These three learning strategies are evidence-based suggestions but it is important to do what suits your learning preference best which will come with trial and error. A comprehensive learning approach is always advisable which involves a combination of strategies as well as regular practise. Good luck!
References
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Allan J. Rossman, Larry Lesser. (2020) Interview With Larry Lesser. Journal of Statistics Education 28:1, pages 109-119.
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Atkinson, R. K., Renkl, A., and Merrill, M. M. (2003). Transitioning from studying examples to solving problems: effects of self-explanation prompts and fading worked-out steps. J. Educ. Psychol. 95, 774–783.
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Bressington DT, Wong WK, Lam KKC, Chien WT. Concept mapping to promote meaningful learning, help relate theory to practice and improve learning self-efficacy in Asian mental health nursing students: A mixed-methods pilot study. Nurse Educ Today. 2018;60:47-55.