Why You Should Go to That 9 AM Lecture
by Matthew Shackelford
It’s 8:30 on a Monday morning. You have half an hour to wake yourself up, (hopefully) eat a small breakfast, and make it all the way across campus for your first class of the day. If you’re anything like me, you’re probably contemplating whether or not to go to class at all right about now. You can just catch up on the lecture slides later, or take notes from a friend, right? Unfortunately, skipping class has a pretty large impact on your academic performance. In fact, class attendance correlates more strongly to a higher GPA than studying alone does. While studying is useful, it is only after excessive amounts of studying (14+ hours per week) that clear, substantial benefits to grades are seen.
While we don’t know if higher class attendance causes higher GPAs directly (the relationship may be correlational and not causal), there are clear benefits to showing up in class every day. Studying is certainly important, but in-class learning is the bedrock that most knowledge is built on; studying is only a reinforcement of that knowledge. We can’t be sure exactly why GPA and class attendance are connected, but there are several clear benefits to showing up in class that could account for this link: information learned during class lectures is more accurate than that learned during individual study, location-specific memory circuits built in class can reactivate on exam day, going to class automatically provides the structure and consistency needed to thoroughly learn information, and learning directly from an expert (i.e. a professor) can produce benefits far beyond repeated studying on your own (no matter the time spent studying).
If you are learning directly from your professor, you can be absolutely sure what you are learning is accurate. Oftentimes, your professors will directly tell you what is and isn’t on the test, what you should and shouldn’t remember about each topic, and even which parts of the slides are wrong. If you are confused, you can ask questions to clear things up; this luxury is not available when studying on your own. The point is, it is much easier to avoid misinformation when in class. And misinformation is difficult to get rid of. The memory cycle consists of encoding, storage, and retrieval. Each time we relive a memory (e.g. learning something in class) to try to remember it better, or each time we try to learn more, we go through the cycle again, altering our memories. If we come across misinformation at any point in our learning process, it gets encoded pretty quickly. Even if we consciously know that information is wrong, it is still embedded in our memory. Misinformation is able to interfere with correct memories that come before (retroactive interference) or after (proactive interference). So, if you come across misinformation, it can interfere with any of your other knowledge, and if you aren’t careful, this could hurt you on exam day. Going to class will virtually eliminate misinformation, directly improving your exam performance.
Reason number two for going to class is that environmental cues are an important part of memory retrieval. Have you ever smelled a really specific scent, or looked at an old photo, and been instantly transported back into a moment? Those are episodic memories, cued by sensory input. Episodic memory refers to memory of a specific event (kind of like seeing an “episode” of your life from a first-person point of view). While smell usually has the strongest connection to episodic memories, certain sights can also set them off. When you are put back into a familiar context, a specific bundle of cells in your hippocampus (the memory center of your brain) that is linked to the context becomes especially excitable. Basically, the same circuits that you just used to encode your knowledge become more active, making it easier to remember what you learned. Learning something in the same context as you are applying it can really come in handy on an exam. This means that if you learn something in class, you are more likely to remember it in class when you are taking an exam. Being in a similar context to where you were when you learned something primes your mind to remember it, and on an exam this can be the difference between getting a question right and getting it wrong.
Long-term learning requires consistency and discipline. It’s hard to get a good grade when you just cram the night before, and there are a few reasons for this (like not getting enough sleep), but chief among them is stress. While slightly elevated stress levels can actually improve the formation of new memories, larger increases in stress (like when you’re trying to memorize 50 textbook pages in three hours) can hinder their formation. If you do not split up your learning throughout multiple days, you simply will not remember as well. The benefit you get from studying over multiple sessions, rather than cramming, is known as the spacing effect. Splitting up learning over multiple sessions not only allows you to alleviate stress, it also allows you to spend more time on new concepts and even revisit your old learning. You can focus on each topic individually, going more in-depth and learning in a more focused manner. Each time you look back at older topics, you encode your learning more thoroughly. Spaced-out learning is more effective than cramming in every possible way. So what does this have to do with attending class? Going to class provides a consistent, spread out learning schedule. You are literally forced to learn little bits each day, rather than doing it all at once. While it is possible to space out your learning effectively on your own, most students don’t do this. I mean, if your exam is next Thursday, why would you spend half an hour studying on Saturday and Sunday when you can just study an extra hour on Wednesday night? As college students, each of us has a whole load of things to get done at any given moment, which is why so many of us cram rather than space out studying, even if we know cramming isn’t as effective. The beauty of attending class is that it automatically provides you with this structure, improving your learning and ensuring that you remember the material better.
Not all studying methods are equally effective. There is a difference between normal studying and deliberate studying. Deliberate studying is a more focused, higher-skilled type of studying; in other words, it’s a more effective kind of learning. It’s the difference between reading the textbook straight through and creating a set of flash cards with cues designed specifically for you to remember. Deliberate studying is much easier to do when you have instruction from experts. In fact, a large reason experts get so knowledgeable or skilled in their fields is because they study deliberately. Your professors are highly knowledgeable in their fields and all have experience teaching students just like you. They will tell you exactly what to learn, and oftentimes exactly how to learn it. Even if it isn’t said outright, you pick up on what your professors want from you by going to class. Class attendance can help you see what topics are being emphasized and what skills need to be learned. This gives you a leg up in studying over another student who is going into it blind.
Exams are often more than just a test of your semantic (factual) memory; they are a test of your critical thinking and class-specific skills. Especially for non-memorization-focused classes, such as mathematics courses, building up your skills can be as important as building up your memory. It’s the same concept as practicing for a sport. If you practice enough, when the time comes to use a skill it becomes second nature and you don’t even have to think about it consciously. This type of implicit (unconscious) memory, known as procedural memory, governs the remembering of habits learned through repetition. This includes both physical and cognitive practices. Going to class can improve your procedural memory in two ways: by ensuring you internalize the right habits, and by reinforcing these habits once you develop them. Once again, your professors will encourage you to pick up the correct skills, telling you exactly what they want you to do on the exam. Often they will explain a more efficient or understandable way to solve a problem or think about a complex topic. While you can theoretically learn these things on your own, why wouldn’t you want to learn directly from someone much more experienced than you? Once you’ve learned the proper technique, going to class will also ensure that you don’t get “rusty.” New procedural memory requires upkeep if you want to keep your skills in the long term. You might not be remembering consciously, but each time you exercise a new skill, you are retrieving past memories of using that skill, re-encoding all of your memories of that skill, and fortifying your procedural memory. Practice makes perfect, and class is a perfect time to practice. Importantly, you will know if you do something wrong and can correct it immediately rather than letting your mistakes fester and interfere with your memory. While it is impossible to avoid mistakes altogether, going to class will help reinforce your procedural “knowledge” and improve your skills, which can help you get higher grades.
There is a reason that students who consistently attend their courses tend to perform better on exams, even if they do not study as much outside of class. Attendance helps students avoid misinformation, provides cues that increase the likelihood of remembering information on exam day, structures learning in a way that maximizes memory, and even improves your unconscious procedural memory. So, next time you’re thinking about skipping class, maybe you should think again. You’ll thank yourself on exam day, when you can actually remember everything you learned and didn’t have to pull an all-nighter the night before. In college, efficiency is the name of the game, and class attendance ensures efficiency in memory. So why not take advantage?
Sources:
Schuman, Howard, et al. “Effort and Reward: The Assumption That College Grades Are Affected by Quantity of Study.” Social Forces, vol. 63, no. 4, 1985, pp. 945–66. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2578600. Accessed 20 Nov. 2023.
Orenstein , David. “How Returning to a Prior Context AIDS Memory Recall.” MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 12 Dec. 2018, news.mit.edu/2018/mit-how-returning-to-prior-context-heightens-memory-recall-1212.
Eryilmaz, Sukru Burc. Cramming: Why It’s Ineffective & Should Be Avoided, Stanford University, web.stanford.edu/~eryilmaz/cramming_is_ineffective.html#:~:text=It%20goes%20without%20saying%20that,to%20breathe%2C%20relax%20and%20refocus. Accessed 20 Nov. 2023.
“Spaced Practice.” Spaced Practice, UC San Diego Department of Psychology, psychology.ucsd.edu/undergraduate-program/undergraduate-resources/academic-writing-resources/effective-studying/spaced-practice.html#:~:text=This%20is%20known%20as%20spaced,information%20and%20retain%20it%20longer. Accessed 20 Nov. 2023.
Pintrich, P.R., et al. Why Study Time Does Not Predict Grade Point Average across College Students: Implications of Deliberate Practice for Academic Performance, Academic Press, 14 Aug. 2004, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0361476X04000384.
“Procedural Memory.” Procedural Memory - an Overview , Science Direct, www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/procedural-memory. Accessed 20 Nov. 2023.