Reading the instructions is a good study skill that can help you improve your grades!!!
When you read instructions, you can get better grades because you have a better idea of what you need to do!!!!
As adults, I suspect many of you have told co-workers, employees, or even family members to “Read the instructions”. What is odd is that students do not practice what they preach when they study. This is a problem as not reading the instructions, and therefore, not reading some of the assignments, tends to cause a decline in student grades (Sappington, Kinsey, and Munsayac, 2002).
Yes, I am getting a bit academic by providing citations, but I am doing this primarily to demonstrate that these comments are not just my personal opinion. Research validates my observations and, I hope, give me more credibility. I am asking you to believe that I have some idea about study skills, reading comprehension, test-taking, and similar academic topics, so I might as well toss in two articles that back up my thoughts.
You are going into some debt as well as taking on a lot of stress to earn your degree to achieve your dreams, so you are entitled to know that the advice you read is valid, right?
Have you ever lost points on an assignment because you forgot to do something? My assignment checklist can help you remember the details. Check it out!
Technology does not always help students earn good grades
I know part of the problem is related to technology. Yes, really. I have seen some indications that those of us who use computers, and that includes YOU as well as me, will do such things as surf and search. We enter a keyword of some sort, get a list of options, scan that list and then make choices. Most people do not thoroughly read the entire list of choices, right? If you are searching for information on something, how much time do you use to actually read an entire article on a topic?
Over time, this leads to the development of that scanning behavior as a major “reading” technique. When you started classes, you probably used the same “technique” to read the material in your classes, if you even really read much of anything, right?
Reading the instructions on a test is important
Not reading instructions, or assuming you know what the instructions are, can backfire quickly. Many times, students do not get the entire sense of the material they are assigned. Not reading instructions has probably caused many students to lose a lot of points on assignments and tests.
When I create True-False tests, I create what has been referred to as an advanced True/False test. Yes. This is more than simply marking an item as true or false. Having been a student myself, I know that many students guess at these questions. A person has a 50 - 50 chance of getting an item right, and a better chance if the person has some idea of the information.
Instructors can have ulterior motives when they write instructions.
Knowing that, I wanted my students to stop guessing. My questions then came with these instructions: “Mark each item as true or false. If the item is false, make a correction that would make the statement true.” I am mean, aren’t I? ? (Then again, if you are investing money in your future, why are you taking the easy way and not learning? Why go into debt and have no knowledge to demonstrate you actually learned something?)
Anyway, my students would always complain about their grades. They could not understand why they lost so many points. I pointed to the instructions. The students would read them, pause, and swear to me that I added the instructions AFTER they took the test. They just did not want to admit that they did not read the instructions. Think about it. Wouldn’t my set of instructions be longer than most of the instructions you have seen on a True-False test? That should have been a clue, but I would say 90% of my students never noticed until about the third time I did that.
Think about some of your assignments. How many times have you lost points because you did not answer the question or respond to the issue as the instructions required?
True Story about why reading the instructions can help your grades
Way back when, in ancient history in a universe far far away, when I was in elementary school (maybe second or third grade), I got sick. When I returned to class, I got a math assignment that I did not understand. My mother helped me with it. This was so long ago, I really do not remember what happened. I suspect I cheated and my mother did the work. Either that, or I did the work and she wrote the answers on the homework page. Whatever happened, I remember getting the assignment back and I failed the assignment.
How does one tell anyone that “My mother helped me with this, and she failed my homework assignment?” I felt my humiliation by myself. Who could I tell? I was embarrassed to tell anyone that my mother failed an elementary school assignment. I never, absolutely NEVER, let anyone do my homework again. If I was going to fail, I was going to do it myself!!!!
As I got older, I realized my mother was not exactly dedicated to reading instructions on anything. She seemed to have an allergy to following instructions. Some of our biggest arguments came because I read the instructions and wanted to do X according to the instructions and she disagreed.
Later, I put two and two together and decided that the reason that “I failed” that elementary school assignment was because the answers needed to be underlined, or put in a box, or something specific like that, and my mother did not do that. She probably just added the answers. I had learned that my mother was good at math; she just was a tad unconventional at how she did it.
Moral of the story:
If you tend not to read instructions, be very careful about helping your children with their homework. Elementary school assignments can be VERY specific!!!
College assignments can be as well. I cannot tell you how many assignments have earned the student poor grades simply because the student did not do what the instructions required. This is especially important when the assignment requires a bit of extra reading.
Research indicates that reading comprehension, including instructions, helps students
I found one study that has been done within the last two or three years. In this case, sixth graders were divided into two groups. One group was simply given an article that included pictures and told to read it and answer questions. The other group was given specific instructions on how to read the article and connect the pictures to the reading material. The group who read the instructions took a little longer to read the article, yes, but they also had a better comprehension of the material and earned higher scores than the group that did not have the instructions.
OK, this was a group of sixth-graders, but I strongly suspect that the end results would not have been different if a group of adult learners had been in the experiment. I know, from experience, that when I give explicit, play-by-play, step-by-step instructions for tricky assignments, the students who listened to/read my instructions earned higher scores.
“This is great, but I have no time to read.”
I suspect this is a comment many of you are thinking. Believe me, I get that. Let me, however, ask a question: Would your overall education and grades do better if you read the instructions, knew what you were doing, and then approached the assignment, or would they be better if you just “jumped right in” and tried to figure out what you were doing as you plodded along?
I would argue that, over time, your comprehension of the material would improve your learning because you had at least some knowledge regarding the course material. Just “jumping in” might get you some understanding, but that understanding would not be connected to much of anything. To use an analogy, you would be jumping into different areas of a big pool. You might learn something about that pool, but could you connect your knowledge to anything else about that pool? Does that make sense?
Try reading the instructions. See if you surprise your instructors and yourself by actually learning something!
Let me know what happens!!
By the way, feel free to disagree. All I ask is that you provide an explanation as to why you disagree. Fair enough?
You might like some of my other posts that discuss study skills:
Effectively using the study cycle
Creating a study plan
10 Effective Strategies to Earn Better Grades
Being a parent and a student
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Have you ever lost points on an assignment because you forgot to do something? My assignment checklist can help you remember the details. Check it out!
If you have any questions or comments, please leave me a note.
Valerie
References
Sappington, J., Kinsey, K., & Munsayac, K. (2002). Two studies of reading compliance among college students, Teaching of Psychology, 29(4) 272-4.
Yu-Cin, J. (2018). Reading instructions influence cognitive processes of illustrated text reading not subject perception: An eye-tracking study. Frontiers in Psychology, 9(2018). doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02263/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02263/full
updated 10 December 2022
