There’s a lot of debate on whether study groups actually improve a person’s likelihood of achievement. Many thrive in such a group, normally when said group push them to do beyond what they would normally do in preparation for an exam. However, quite often study groups have the opposite effect, where studiers settle for mediocre and use the rest of their time, in the group, for socialising.
Here’s a list of pros and cons for those of you who can’t decide whether it’s the right move for you.
Pros | Cons |
Studying with other people allows you the opportunity to test each other before the exam. | Study groups often just turn into social gatherings and not a lot of studying actually gets done. |
You are able to ask your fellow studiers for help understanding a topic you don’t get. | All members need to be equally motivated or else one or two members can affect the activeness of the entire group. |
Many classes are better studied through debates and discussions, something you can’t do on your own. | Members who spend more of their free time working on the material quite often don’t get a lot of studying done in the group, as they spend most of the session just explaining things to other people. |
Having to discuss different topics with other people forces you to come up with explanations, using terminology that can later be useful in the exam. | Depending on the type of group, members may just settle for mediocrity, instead of pushing themselves to achieve more. |
Complex subjects can be split into various parts, so that individuals can work on their part and then “teach” what they have learnt to the rest of the group. | Generally, an individual’s personal level of concentration isn’t as high, due to distractions. |
Setting times for study groups helps the more lethargic person study, as it forces them to be somewhere at a specific time and study for an entire session. | Loss of study time in the commute to the location of the study group. |
Generally study groups will use more resources than if you were studying on your own, because they tend to meet in libraries or at their university. | Quite often people don’t go to a study group long enough to obtain the desired results. |
A study group gives you the chance to compare notes taken in class. Maybe what you didn’t think was important enough to write down, someone else did. | There is sometimes a time issue, as the group can only work at the pace of the slowest member. This can have a negative effect on the more comprehending members of the group. |
Hopefully this list will help you decide whether a study group is for you.
My final comment would have to be, make sure you join a group filled with avid studiers, because motivation is the key to success.