Spring Break
Studying in bed not bad, survey shows
Frank Greve (McClatchy Newspapers)
Issue date: 8/27/07 Section: News
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WASHINGTON — Forty years ago, Robert Gifford, a senior at the University of California at Davis, spent a few weeks banging on dorm doors and asking occupants whether they were studying.
Gifford didn't want to party; he just wanted to see whether the students were working at their desks or on their beds. Then he wanted to compare the grade-point averages of the erect to the supine.
Gifford's little experiment was a rare serious effort to answer a question that erupts in millions of households and dorms across the nation: Will I do better if I study in an uncomfortable position?
The answer certainly is yes if you go by published study guides and the venerable experts who write them.
"You need a chair that's not real comfortable, and you certainly don't want to be studying on your bed," said Sherrie Nist-Olejnik, a recent retiree from the University of Georgia at Athens, where she directed or delivered various "learning to learn" efforts for 24 years.
"There's not a lot written about it, but if you ask students about studying on their beds, they laugh and tell you they fall asleep," said Nist-Olejnik, author of a popular study guide called College Rules!
Indeed, Emily Kopilow, 21, a junior at Haverford College in Haverford, Pa., did laugh at studying in bed — but she also spurned the uncomfortable chair idea. "If you're uncomfortable," she said, "you'll focus on your body and your discomfort, not what you're supposed to be reading about."
Cultural historian Edward Tenner, author most recently of Our Own Devices, a book about technology's influence on behavior, agreed. He suspects that the uncomfortable chair theory is rooted in the good-posture movement that flourished between World Wars I and II. It asserted a connection between sitting straight and straight thinking.
Tenner said he also was reminded of the how-to-succeed advice of 19th-century author John Todd. In his best-seller, titled Index Rerum, Todd wrote these stern words: "Standing is undoubtedly the best method of study."
Gifford didn't want to party; he just wanted to see whether the students were working at their desks or on their beds. Then he wanted to compare the grade-point averages of the erect to the supine.
Gifford's little experiment was a rare serious effort to answer a question that erupts in millions of households and dorms across the nation: Will I do better if I study in an uncomfortable position?
The answer certainly is yes if you go by published study guides and the venerable experts who write them.
"You need a chair that's not real comfortable, and you certainly don't want to be studying on your bed," said Sherrie Nist-Olejnik, a recent retiree from the University of Georgia at Athens, where she directed or delivered various "learning to learn" efforts for 24 years.
"There's not a lot written about it, but if you ask students about studying on their beds, they laugh and tell you they fall asleep," said Nist-Olejnik, author of a popular study guide called College Rules!
Indeed, Emily Kopilow, 21, a junior at Haverford College in Haverford, Pa., did laugh at studying in bed — but she also spurned the uncomfortable chair idea. "If you're uncomfortable," she said, "you'll focus on your body and your discomfort, not what you're supposed to be reading about."
Cultural historian Edward Tenner, author most recently of Our Own Devices, a book about technology's influence on behavior, agreed. He suspects that the uncomfortable chair theory is rooted in the good-posture movement that flourished between World Wars I and II. It asserted a connection between sitting straight and straight thinking.
Tenner said he also was reminded of the how-to-succeed advice of 19th-century author John Todd. In his best-seller, titled Index Rerum, Todd wrote these stern words: "Standing is undoubtedly the best method of study."
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