Studying with Friends in Introductory Biology Is Associated with Low Impact Study Strategies and No Improvement of Exam Scores.

Students often choose to study for exams with friends. Since active learning in class boosts success, instructors might expect studying with peers to also help. However, research offers little support for this. We investigated whether students study with peers because of low metacognitive knowledge about study strategies. At the start and end of a first-term introductory biology course, students reported their study strategies and their knowledge about their effectiveness. These data were combined with student demographic information and grades. We found that students entered university demonstrating only modest metacognitive knowledge, and this was associated with course performance. Study group use was popular, with students valuing the support and collaboration, but it had no significant effect on exam scores. Students chose encoding over retrieval strategies regardless of whether they studied alone or with others, and students who more often used encoding strategies while studying scored lower on exams. We conclude that studying with friends is not harmful, but it is based on incomplete metacognitive knowledge, and encoding strategies in general are used too close to exams. We recommend that instructors encourage peer study groups to meet during nonexam weeks when students are learning rather than studying.