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In a previous post, we came up with a set of 5 study tips for students. Many teachers - and hopefully some students! - read them and told us that they found them to be useful.

But with the internet awash with study tips, how do you know which ones to trust and pass on to your students?

As learning scientists, we believe the safest bet is to go for properly tested techniques that are backed up by research. But with lots of advice claiming to be backed by science, how do you know which ones really are?

The following tips are not exhaustive, but they are a good starting point for thinking critically about educational advice and how seriously you should take it.

The following are promising signs of science-backed study tips:

1)   There are very few tips

There are at least two reasons why a good list of study tips will only include a handful of tips. First of all, we know that people have a limited attention span and quickly stop reading/paying attention when information overload hits, so providing fewer tips is actually more effective than a long list of tips. . Second, based on the science of learning, there really aren’t all that many specific recommendations we can make. Instead, we’re able to make a small number of very general recommendations for things that work in most circumstances - such as spacing and active learning. So, you should be wary of long lists of study tips.

2)   There is no mention of “how your brain learns”; especially terms such as “brain-based learning” and “brain-friendly learning”

This one is simple: learning scientists tend to recognize that all academic learning takes place in, err, the brain; so tautological terms like “brain-based learning” should sound alarm bells.

3) The tips are written by actual scientists

This might be a controversial one - and I’m definitely not trying to say that teachers or journalists can’t effectively communicate about learning. But if the study tips are written by the people who actually researched them, it’s more likely that when they simplified the science, they picked the important points to focus on.

4) The tips are not said to be “proven to work”, or even worse, “proven by science”

The word “proven” is taboo in science. We don’t prove anything; we can only disprove, or find evidence consistent with an idea. Here is an excellent very short piece about this, which I recommend to all consumers of science.

5) You’re not told to “figure out whether you learn with pictures”, or any kind of style

As I’m sure you’ve heard, there doesn’t appear to be any evidence that matching learning strategies to preferred styles actually increases learning. So while you’re welcome to seek out the strategies that you enjoy, such as drawing what you know, if you see a questionnaire that purports to identify your “learning style”, run the other way.

6) They don’t contain platitudes like “everybody learns differently”

I admit, this may be just a pet peeve, but I have a big problem with statements that are both totally true and totally false, to the point where they have no meaning. Is every individual unique? Sure. But do we all process and store information in the same way, and is it helpful to know how to use these processes most efficiently? I say yes. If you disagree, please provide evidence to the contrary.

7) You can find links to actual scientific studies that support the tips

Although there’s a clear distinction between blog posts/journalism and academic writing, a good popular piece will include references or links to published papers. Beware of links to “evidence” which turns out to be other journalistic pieces that take you on an endless search for the original source (which then turns out to be an unpublished study done in 1972 on 8 boys).

Dr. Yana Weinstein (@doctorwhy on Twitter) is an Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She co-runs the Learning Scientists blog. Follow the Learning Scientists on Twitter at @AceThatTest.