Towards a theory of study habit alteration

Weekly e-mail reminders were sent to students inspired to acquire the habit of reviewing within 24 hours of lecture. Reminders were withheld in the second term. Students reported whether they have acquired and maintained the new habit even without the study reminders for the entire second term. We found that e-mail reminders contributed to study habit formation. The new study habit was also found to improve student performance. We describe a simplified adaptation of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to study factors that affect behavioural intention to use reminders for study habit alteration.