If you've ever told your parents you were going to study at the library with classmates just so you could go out on a school night with friends, you might be missing out on something worthwhile. Conversely, some students who've taken the time to study with a group may have found themselves failing a test the next day. So, do study groups really work for everyone?

Study groups can be effective techniques for a group of students to get through a large amount of material in a short amount of time. Work can be divided up between members, and in some cases, individual members may even teach the group the section that they covered themselves. The small group setting can lend support to the bashful student, but will not overwhelm a wallflower by being a crowd.

Material can be discussed and analyzed rather than simply memorized, and let's face it, spending a night memorizing notes isn't going to motivate anyone.

If you're like me, you learn best if you're left alone to read your textbook. Sometimes you might find it hard to concentrate and take notes while listening to a lecture, but taking notes from a textbook or handout, and interpreting what you read is a much more comfortable learning style for you.

Students who learn easily this way may be reluctant to join a study group for fear of wasting time having to learn from others what they might otherwise simply read themselves. But there may be benefits for the bookworm in a group.

Ask the other members if you can read or photocopy their notes. You may gain a new perspective on the material, and someone else's interpretation on top of your own may, if anything, simply reinforce the hard facts in the material you're looking at.

There was one main reason a study group worked for me in high school and then made me swear by the method all through my post-secondary education. In a large lecture or even in a tutorial of over ten students, raising my hand to voice my opinion or answer a question was not an option.

I had such severe stage fright that if a teacher or professor called on me out of the blue, I blushed down to my ankles and my throat got dry and closed up so that it was hard to breathe. I would choke out the first thing that came to mind whether it was really what I believed or not, and when my heart rate had slowed, I realized that this was no way to learn.

By studying with a couple of students of my own choosing, I was able to discuss my ideas without panicking. By actually discussing what I had read on my own, I discovered that it also helped me interpret the material. After I had done this, I became more confident with the material, and was therefore more confident talking about it in class. This is not to say that I wasn't a basket case if a teacher caught me by surprise by calling on me, but I could definitely head them off if I knew the answer.

The students in my class who fearlessly squirmed out of their seats with their hands in the air to answer questions seemed like perfect candidates for a study group. But some of the less obvious reasons might have been the most beneficial for them.

In a large group setting they might be missing out on some of the viewpoints of classmates like the shy ones discussed above. It is also beneficial for a student to teach some of the material to the rest of the study group. If you learn best by discussing the material or listening to the teacher lecture the class, take the teacher or professor's role in your next group meeting and try to put the material in your own words to teach the group.

Another method of learning that can benefit from a study group is the application of the material you've been taught. Some students can't really get their head around a concept until they do the exercise questions in their textbook or homework assignments. But if these questions are too obvious or perhaps not helpful enough, why not have the members of your group make up practice tests and exchange them with one another?

The best part of this is once you finish, the test-maker can mark your test and you can all go over the problem areas as a group.

Study groups might not be your style. You might have your whole study routine down - a fresh pot of coffee, classical music, and an essential oil infusion lightly tickling your nostrils while stimulating your memory. But if you've ever been frustrated by your tendency to procrastinate, forgotten to cover some material for a test, or drawn a blank on the pages and pages of facts you memorized the night before, a study group might just be the answer.

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