Why memorising facts can be a keystone to learning

There has been a great deal of discussion recently concerning the benefits, or otherwise, of memorisation in learning. Memorisation, it must be stressed, does not necessarily mean learning by 'rote' and in fact rote learning is just one way in which we are able to commit things to memory. Information can be memorised in many different ways and using specific techniques (mnemonics, rote learning, visualisation and so on) in order to learn long lists of numbers, playing cards in a deck, dates, names and any amount of other things.

The human brain is pretty good at learning. Each time it learns something new (anything from the capital of France to riding a bike) a connection is formed between neurons in the brain, the more the thing to be learned is repeated, the stronger the connections become. So far so good.

Mnemonics, such as the method of loci (or the memory palace technique) fuse imagination, imagery and previously stored information in such a way that retention and recall is improved. In fact, back in September, I gave my year 12 psychology students a list of 20 words to memorise using this very method and many of them can still recall the list (in order) today. One student can even recite the list backwards and forwards.

But what has this got to do with learning? What's the point of learning a list of random words? Perhaps memorising and reciting facts is only useful for showing off at dinner parties or impressing the boss?

Our working memory has a limited capacity and although it's very good at receiving data from our long-term memory and manipulating it (as it does so well when carrying out mental arithmetic) it is still limited to between around five to seven items. There are many ways we can increase this by, for example, 'chunking' items together to make them more manageable.

Creating context is another way that we can improve on the way we use working memory and context is often about facts.

During the A-level psychology memory topic, I often present students with the following text (taken from a 1972 study by psychologists John Bransford and Marcia Johnson):

"The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into different groups. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is the next step, otherwise you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too many. In the short run this may not seem important but complications can easily arise. A mistake can be expensive as well. At first the whole procedure will seem complicated."

Once students have read through the text I take the text away and ask them to recall as much of it as they can. The twist is that some students have received the text with the title Instructions for doing the washing, while others are given no title. Those students who are able to read the text within the context (the facts associated with doing the laundry) can recall more than those who have no context to rely on.

Context is obviously important, but what has this got to do with memorisation? Knowing facts helps us to place other problems into context and access higher order thinking skills. If the facts we have memorised are accurate and accessible they can be used in order to give context to other situations, if we cannot recall these facts we are unable to place new problems into context.

Another example from my own teaching comes from the social psychology of conformity. In 1956 the psychologist Solomon Asch discovered that people would give an obvious wrong answer to a question if all other members of the group (who were actually in cahoots with Asch) gave that wrong answer first. One explanation for this was that, at the time of the experiment, the United States was in the grip of the McCarthyism and people might have preferred not to stand out from the crowd. History students in my class tend to get this because they have the relevant information to draw on while other students are often totally bemused. We often assume our students know these things because we knew them when we were their age. In reality, this is rarely the case.

Of course some students have a greater general knowledge than others and so-called cultural capital plays a major part in academic performance. Those children who are able to relate to certain literary texts, for example, are immediately at an advantage over those children who may not have access to things such as newspapers and books.

Memorising facts can build the foundations for higher thinking and problem solving. Constant recitation of times tables might not help children understand mathematical concepts but it may allow them to draw on what they have memorised in order succeed in more complex mental arithmetic. Memorisation, therefore, produces a more efficient memory, taking it beyond its limitations of capacity and duration.

This is not to say that all learning should be based on memorisation and this has never been suggested. Any good teacher understands that a variety of teaching methods will get the best from our students and that specific students might require specialist interventions. Nevertheless, there exists a considerable body of evidence to suggest that a memory rife with facts learns better than one without.

Marc Smith teaches A-level psychology at a secondary school in north Yorkshire and is a member of the GTN teacher panel. Marc is a chartered psychologist and an associate fellow of the British Psychological Society. Follow him on twitter @psychologymarc.

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