The authors contend that students are rarely taught how to study and that even when the teacher gives explicit instructions to study a particular chapter or topic, students are not given the tools necessary to facilitate this process. Studying is often a passive activity and rarely do students recognize how to apply new information and concepts to both prior work and real world situations. As an example, the authors use the process of studying a chapter to illustrate the benefits of using electronic outliners.
Students then write a very brief summary under each heading and sub-heading.
Finally, students use the hide and reveal function of the electronic outliner to cover up specific information in order to do a self-test. Twelve average to below average high school students were provided a computer-based outlining program and were taught the three step process mentioned above. Students were then given two types of comprehension tests. Results showed that every student learned more when using the outliner as an aid to studying the textbook. Students also felt a sense of ownership over their studying and felt confident that their studying would pay off in the end.