Chapter II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

Foreign Related Literature

Flashcards are a great way to improve your memory and study at the same time,

and they are very easy to make and add to later if you need to. These are basically a set

of small cards (you can use address index cards or buy special flashcard making sets)

which have one word or idea on one side, with a more in-depth explanation on the other.

This could be things like a word on one side, with the definition on the other, or a date on

one side, with a historical events which took place on that date on the other. Kim

Morrison (2014) says that flashcards are so useful because they encourage the brain the

see the clue, which is quite a basic and easy to remember piece of information, and link

that to a more complex piece of information. This link means that seeing the clue should

prompt the brain to remember the rest of the information quite easily, as seeing the clue

causes your brain to actively recall the answer on the other side of the card. Using

flashcards is more useful than just reading over all the information you need to

remember, as it means you can break it down into more manageable chunks, which

should be easier to recall. It also gives you a chance to see which pieces of information

you have come to grips with, as there may be an answer you keep forgetting, and focus

your study on the parts you are having trouble with. (www.getadministrate.com)

Flashcards may have a reputation as being one of the most boring ways to study.

But there’s a reason that flashcards have been a preferred study method for hundreds of

years: they work effectively. While they won’t necessarily instill focus and motivation in

an otherwise helpless student, flashcards are hands-down the most effective way for

motivated learners to study and retain factual knowledge, especially when they are used
smartly. According to Andrew Cohen (2017), flashcards engage “active recall”. When

you look at the front side of a flashcard and think of the answer, you are engaging a

mental faculty known as active recall. In other words, you are attempting to remember

the concept from scratch rather than simply staring at the passage in your textbook or

recognizing it on a multiple choice quiz. Active recall has been proven to create stronger

neuron connections for that memory trace. And because flashcards can so easily

facilitate repetition, they are the best way to create multiple memory-enhancing recall

events.Second, flashcards utilize your metacognitive faculties. When you reveal the

answer side of a flashcard to assess your correctness, you are essentially asking

yourself “How did my answer compare to this correct answer?” and “How well did I know

(or not know) it?” This act of self-reflection is known as metacognition. Research shows

that applying metacognition tends to ingrain memories deeper into your knowledge.

Lastly, flashcards allow for confidence-based repetition. Because flashcards exist

loosely, rather than tied to a book or document, you are able to separate them into piles

based on whether (or how often) you need to study them again. This practice

of confidence-based repetition is proven by decades of research to be the most

scientifically optimized way to improve memory performance. Of course, where possible,

you should always try to learn new concepts using project-based learning, or by asking

your own questions. But when it comes to studying or reviewing concepts in the most

effective way possible, nothing comes close to flashcards. Especially adaptive

learning flashcards. (www.brainscapes.com)

Foreign Related Studies

One early work by Komachali & Khodareza (2012) proves that there is a

significant difference in the efficiency of using flashcards compared to the traditional

teaching method. Their study investigated the effect of vocabulary flash card on the

vocabulary knowledge of two groups of Iranian pre-university students. At the end of

their study, they concluded that the contribution of vocabulary flashcards in teaching

vocabulary to students led to a big improvement. This study also stated that vocabulary

flashcard facilitates the students’ involvement in the class work by brainstorming

answers, trying to participate in class, paying attention to their professors. Basically, the

students perform better in their class. The findings of this study revealed that the

experimental group who had received the treatments on vocabulary flash card,

significantly enhanced better performance in a vocabulary test.

A research study conducted by (Yue, Storm, Kornell, and Bjork, 2014) showed a

surprising finding of the present study is that participants who valued highlighters the

most profited least from their use. One possible reason for this finding is that participants

whowere unaccustomed to highlighting put more effort into the act of highlighting, with

the ultimate result of better retention. From this perspective, highlighting could be

characterized as a desirable difficulty, at least for some students, because it forces them

to think about and process text differently than they typically would and in a way that

ultimately leads to better memory for that text. These results also suggest that even if

participants were prevented from engaging in the type of study processes they normally

employ, the costs of such prevention did not outweigh the benefits of using a highlighter.

Another study done by (Nishimura and Kuwahara, 2017) says that it was evident

that learners, who had chosen appropriate learning strategies, deepened their learning

content and acquired more knowledge compared to learners, who still was not sure of
their learning strategies. However, regardless of any learning strategy, learners use

various writing instruments such as pencils, mechanical pencils, and ballpoint pens.

Among these writing instruments, they focused on the highlighter pen. A highlighter pen

is generally used for the purpose of prompting learners by colouring keywords or

phrases of importance, thereby improving learning efficiency. It is thought that colouring

and highlighting text with a highlighter pen will influence the learner’s cognitive process

in learning. Regarding the use of the highlighter pen for learning, the following research

has been done so far. In the past, studies on the effect of highlighting by a highlighter

pen on the colour and memory favourable to vision, the study of the influence of

appropriate highlighting in sentences on keyword search, and the study on the learning

effect with presence/absence of highlighting was conducted. As a result of these studies,

it was shown that the learning effect was observed as expected; however, the reason for

this occurrence has not yet been confirmed. Also, it is not clarified what kinds of

influence extended to the learner’s attention, consciousness, memory and others by

using a highlighter pen. And overall, it remainsunclear of what kind of change was

brought to the cognitive process.

Local Related Literature

This portion of Chapter II contains articles, excerpts, and information from books,

web pages, and other articles which were published LOCALLY.

Please be reminded that in citing websites, copy and paste the link at the end of

the paragraph, removing the other parts which are composed of codes and so forth.

In citing authors, you may include the last name only along with the year. For

example: Ramos (2008).

Local Related Studies

This portion of Chapter II contains findings from research papers which were

published LOCALLY.

Please be reminded that in citing websites, copy and paste the link at the end of

the paragraph, removing the other parts which are composed of codes and so forth.

In citing authors, you may include the last name only along with the year. For

example: Ramos (2008).