Table of Contents
Background
A student’s responsibility is to study. Student responsibility occurs when students take an active role in their learning by recognizing they are accountable for their academic success. (Jamestown community College). Students are given enough time to study. Despite the given time, students sometimes couldn’t absorb all the information taught by their educators. Sometimes, students tend to forget what their teachers taught them. This resorts them to study last minute especially in an exam. This process is called cramming.
Cramming is the process wherein a person, study in a short period of time for an exam. Cramming is either an effective or ineffective way to study depending on the students. We could say that cramming could either motivate students to learn more or stress them out even more. The fact that the peak time for seeking help occurs when students are not under immediate academic pressure implies that these lulls might be the most psychologically stressful times for the students. (Sommer, 1990)
Cramming is common in higher education. (Steel, 2007) Cramming, while effective for some learners in test preparation, does not address the ideal of lifelong learning (Oyetunji, Mokadam, 2018).
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On the other hand, while cramming is getting popular among students, there are places dedicated to students for cramming. These places are cram school. Cram schools are specialized schools that train their students to meet particular goals, most commonly to pass the entrance examinations of high schools or universities. (New World Encyclopedia)
According to Bray (1999), cram schools providing supplementary or test-preparation programs have been popular for decades in many countries around the world, primarily in Asian countries where cram schooling is particularly widespread. Cram schools not only just affect students’ grades but also in the field of mental health. (Kuan, 2019) It is shown that academic excellence is rewarded from the stress, cramming gives to a student.
There are causes of why cramming is happening. For one, students have different priorities. Some choose to spend time playing, binge watching, reading books and etc. Two, students are bombarded by boredom which will lead to the third reason. Three, students tend to procrastinate in studying. Overall, students cram because learning is no longer enjoyable. (Young, 2018)
Cramming has its effects to the learners and their mental health. Cramming is connected with emotional, mental and physical impairments that lessen the body’s ability to cope with its environment. Students who tend to cram to get through an exam week would constantly struggle to perform regularly, once the brain gets used to continuous sleep deprivation. (Heibutzki)
Since cramming is an effect of procrastination, we can say that cramming is not irrational. (Grund, Fries, 2018) Cramming can be seen as a motivational approach to some students. Students, who have done cramming, motivates them to finish their work and make them study even harder for the test. A study by Hensley (2014), suggests that active procrastination as educationally productive postponement. Indicating that motivation gained from the postponement of studying that leads to cramming can increase productivity.
Stress is a dependent variable in our research. Knowing the right way to handle stress in the classroom and on the sports field can make the difference between success and failure for the millions of students going back to school, new University of Chicago research shows. Sirios (2016) indicated in their research that procrastination and stress has a negative effect towards our health conditions.
While we are reading relevant articles, we found out that there are not enough evidence to prove that cramming has its positive effects. It also lacks evidence on how cramming and stress is connected. There are almost no evidence of the relativity of cramming to motivation.
It also mostly talked about procrastination, not cramming. Procrastination, although related to cramming, is only an effect of this. Most of the research articles we have found are about cram school. It lacked evidence on the actual cramming for exams and cramming for school requirements.
The purpose of this research is to show the positive and negative effects of cramming. Not only that, it is also to show how relevant stress is to cramming and the relevance of motivation to study.Within this research, we will be filling in the gaps from the articles we have found: the motivation that cramming gives, the stress coming from it, the overall impact to a student’s life including its impact on students’ passing of requirements and performance in school.
This research is dedicated to students who usually cram. On how cramming may have its positive and a lot negative effects toward students. The main reason why we are doing this research is to encourage students to work and study harder.
References
- American Psychological Association – Learner Resources
- Effects of Stress on Student Learning – NeuroImage
- Cognitive and emotional factors related to cramming in college students – Frontiers in Psychology
- The Conversation – “Explainer: What motivates people to study?”
- Motivation and Academic Success in College Students – National Center for Biotechnology Information
- Retrieval practice protects memory against acute stress – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- The Importance and Potential Benefits of Physical Activity as a Complement to Cognitive and Affective Learning – Nature Education
