Effective Study Habits
For Good Academic Performance

By Dr. Niranjan Prasad Upadhyay

EVERY student prefers to study different types of reading materials. Generally, the students use their own methods. Especially, the psychologists give key methods and skills pertaining to effective study or learning. Effective methods of learning always shows good academic performance of the students .

Effective study covers a planned programme of subject matter mastery. It carries diversified roles i.e. to acquire knowledge and habits which will be useful in meeting new situations, interpreting ideas, making sound judgements, creating new ideas, to perfect the skills and to develop attitudes.

The term "practice" refers to the repetition of an activity in order to perfect performance. Study is usually is associated with reading and reference work, but it is also related to the solution of problems arising in daily life activities. Successful achievement in any form of activity is based upon study, interpretation and application.

If an individual wishes to get ideas from the printed page, he/she will direct his/her energies in terms of particular purpose or aim that he/she hopes to achieve. The basic interest in reading the material may be to analyze critically the content of the reading matter or the style of the writer. The basic objective may be that of gaining emotional stimulation from what is being read. Study requires a purpose, and what one learns as a result of study depends largely upon the degree to which one succeeds in achieving that aim or purpose. Learners, whether they be children in the third grade or students in high school or college, often give evidence of lacking study habits. Since study usually is connected with gaining of ideas from the printed page, the learner’s need to grasp the thoughts of a writer. When the experiences of the reader and the writer have been similar, the reader’s interpretation of the written material is made quite easy.

In academic course of study, the students sometimes may fail in their exams. It happens due to various causes. Poor study habits also account for this type of failure. An educational Psychologist reports that fresh students do not succeed in their study activities largely because they lack purpose, read in small units and fail to take proper notes and home works. Batra, P. and Garga, R. (2001) have conducted their study on effect of temperature on memory. The findings reveal the higher degrees of temperature would lead towards slower acquisition and poor retention as compared to moderate level of temperature. The study reveals that temperature as an environmental variables which plays an important role in learning and memory.

Students either in high school or campus, especially those who succeed , usually study alone and pursue a study technique that has been worked out by themselves and that incorporates desirable procedure. When this purpose is linked with a selected life work, the learner’s energies are focused still further on mastery of learning materials, and he/she thereby is enabled to concentrate on the subject area of his/her interest. The successful student learns how to alternate work with rest. A learning psychologist writes that the effective study habits cover various approaches viz. regular note preparation, participation in class room works, use library and recall the learned items. The eminent psychologists Lester D. Crow and Alice Crow have highlighted that the amount and kind of study in which learner engages differ with his/her age and grade level. During the early years of schooling the child masters fundamental learning tools, habits and attitudes as a result of classroom stimulation.

As a young person passes through the latter grades of elementary school, high school, and college, study materials become more abstract. The learner’s techniques and habits of study need to be adjusted to the change in learning materials, purposes and desired outcomes.

Feeling of fatigue, however, are known to result if study conditions are unfavourable. Inadequate lighting, extreme of temperatures or humidity, poor posture, subnormal physical condition, emotional disturbances, or boredom in connection with the activity may produce severe feeling of fatigue.

A school building located alongside a main highway or busy marketplace gives rise to so many distracting influences that extra effort is required if the learner is to concentrate upon study content. Experimental evidence indicates that noise and other distracting factors decrease learning efficiency and cause an individual to waste energy. So the school and college buildings must be far from main highway or busy market areas.

Poor reading habits are obstacles in effective study. Learners differ in their rate of reading. The more rapidly an individual reades, the more ideas he/she is likely to get from the material read. His/her reading speed also may be increased by the fact that he/she is reading for a definite purpose. A slow reader tends to give attention to each word or to separate phases, thus decreasing his/her reading efficiency.

Many students are able to develop efficient study habits without receiving any special formal trainings. However, it may result from the use of several methods of study before satisfactory study procedures are discovered. Some young people fail to achieve economical and successful study techniques unless they receive help in the form of guiding principles, which they can apply to their study activities. The educational Psychologists have forwarded some suggestions related to effective study habits, which include having a definite purpose of and place for study. They also suggest seeking favourable physical conditions for concentration and to have a definite schedule for study. Interspersing study with rest periods, silent but rapid and careful recitation, taking notes, evaluating the difficulty of the learning materials and developing a habit of summarising and reviewing what is read could prove to be some of the important methods for successful study.

Study habits are developed through the process of parenting. Especially, good parenting always leads to prosperous and healthy environment within family. Also school environment and good friends are the key influencing factors for the forming of effective study habits in young people.

Initial Stages Of Democracy

By Guna Dev Bhattarai

DURING the premiership of Mohan Shumshere all the political parties including those founded in India, had been banned. The fall of the Rana regime in 1951 facilated the Nepalese to form political parties and political groups at home. The parties, which were formed in India, became prominent in the politics of Nepal. The majority of the Nepalese being quite ignorant of democratic norms and values had remained aloof of politics for a longtime. With the emergency of democracy the people hoped that their long cherished wishes and aspirations would be fulfilled by the leaders of the parties but the various governments under democracy could not bring about any substantial change in the life of the people. The party leaders and, the Congress in particular, began to fight among themselves to grind their own axes. That is why larger goals of taking the country on the right path of democratic progress were lost. The people residing in the hills and the Terai regions were deprived of their genuine desires to be fulfilled by the various ministries. That is why some sections of people became restless and violent protests against the government became the order of the day.

On the one hand, there was no broad based national political organisation. On the other hand, the leading members of political parties were divided in their ideology. The Nepali Congress Party, which was the largest political party in the country, was charged by all other parties that the former was greatly influenced by the Indian leaders. Other parties were either loosely knit or under some leaders who failed to command respect from the masses.

The high sounding slogans and promises made by the parties without heeding to the urgent needs of the people proved hollow because the majority of the people had already lost their faith in the dirty party politics. The leader of political parties would make big promise by means of socialism or democratic exercise but they themselves were Not clear what they would express before the people. That is why the people found themselves befooled by the leaders of all parties because no concrete and substantial measures were undertaken to fulfil the people’s urgent grievances.

The majority of the people of Nepal had no political awakening, Lack of good means of transport and communication became the major hurdles of all parties to make the people acquinted with their political agenda. Under such circumstances, movements were organised on the basis of tribal, communal or local demands. Some leaders became successful in organising a party comprising students, intellectuals, ex-servicemen and the illiterate sections of the peasant population but there were no common ties to bind them together for a long time.

The Congress Party was to some extent financially sound in comparison to other parties. The Gorkha Parished also was economically sound but their earlier activities made them fail to win over the hearts of the progressive minded people. It could attract the illiterate people of some hilly regions and some outskirts of the valley. The Nepal Communist Party until and unless changed their international dogma could not convince the people who were in favour of a democratic form of government under a constitutional monarchy. The prevailing circumstances compelled them to change their dogma and, at last, compromised among themselves in keeping with the will of the people. It thought captivated the hearts of the people of some regions of the country but it had no financial foundation of enlist many people as its members.

The power grabbed by the Ranas was replaced by the king under some restrictions. Simultaneously, a new class of leaders including some C class Ranas, educated and progressive minded people who had participated in the liberation movement of 1950-51, became key figures in the Nepalese politics. Other sections of people such as the Rais. Limbus, Magars, Gurungs and the like had taken part in the said movement in the courses of time found their replaces in the ministries but they could not play a major role in the politics of Nepal. The leading members of other parties or organisations and, the Praja Parishad leaders in particular, could not find any place in the earlier ministries. In short only the Nepali Congress Party became prominent during King Tribhuvan’s reign.