When I ask my students about their go-to study strategies, one strategy that is frequently mentioned is flashcards. This nicely aligns with research into the topic showing that generating and learning with flashcards is a common strategy among students (1). However, the question is whether students use flashcards effectively. For example, if students use flashcards simply as a tool to read the material over and over (rereading), they are not using flashcards to their full potential.
On the other hand, if they use flashcards as a way to retrieve taught material from memory, it will likely lead to better outcomes and performance in the long run. Now, another question you could ask is: What should go on a flashcard? Students could generate flashcards with definitions and simple facts on them that they then use to study – let’s call this kind of flashcards detail-level flashcards.
Alternatively, they could generate flashcards that are more conceptual where different concepts are connected with each other and information from different class sessions are integrated – we’ll call this kind of flashcards conceptual-level flashcards for now.
