In 2013, psychologists John Dunlosky, Katherine Rawson, and their colleagues published a landmark review of ten common study techniques, rating each for effectiveness based on the available research evidence. Their findings challenged conventional wisdom about how students should study — and over a decade later, most students still haven't gotten the message. Here's a summary of what works, what doesn't, and how to build a study routine around the best techniques.
High Effectiveness: The Techniques That Actually Work
Practice testing. Testing yourself on material — using flashcards, practice exams, or free recall — is the single most effective study technique identified in the research. The testing effect (also known as retrieval practice) has been demonstrated in hundreds of studies: the act of retrieving information from memory strengthens the memory trace more than any form of passive review. This works even when you get the answer wrong, as long as you get corrective feedback afterward. Practice testing improves long-term retention, transfer to new contexts, and performance on different types of assessments. If you only adopt one technique from this article, make it this one.
Distributed practice (spaced repetition). Spreading your study sessions over time — instead of cramming everything into one session — dramatically improves long-term retention. The spacing effect is one of the most robust findings in all of cognitive psychology, replicated across hundreds of studies and decades of research. Reviewing material at increasing intervals (1 day, 3 days, 7 days, 14 days, 30 days) forces your brain to rebuild fading memory traces, making them stronger each time. The optimal spacing depends on how far in the future the test is: for a test in a week, space your sessions 1–2 days apart; for a test in a month, space them 3–5 days apart; for a test in 6 months, space them 1–3 weeks apart.
Moderate Effectiveness: Useful but Situational
Interleaved practice. Instead of studying one topic until you've mastered it before moving to the next (blocked practice), mix different topics or problem types within a single study session. This feels harder — and your in-session performance will be worse — but your long-term retention and ability to discriminate between problem types improves substantially. Interleaving is especially effective for math and science, where choosing the right approach is as important as executing it. The challenge is that it feels inefficient while you're doing it, which leads many students to abandon it. Trust the research over the feeling.
Elaborative interrogation. Asking yourself "why" and "how" questions while studying forces deeper processing than simple reading. "Why does this happen? How does this relate to what I already know? Why is this different from that?" Generating explanations (even imperfect ones) creates richer memory encodings than passively absorbing information. This technique works best when you already have some background knowledge in the subject — it's less effective for completely new material where you don't have enough context to generate meaningful explanations.
Self-explanation. While reading or solving problems, explain each step to yourself. "The answer is B because the reactant is a weak acid, which means it only partially dissociates, which means the pH will be higher than if it were a strong acid." This technique catches misconceptions early (when your explanation doesn't make sense, you know you don't understand the concept) and builds the kind of deep, connected understanding that transfers to novel problems. It's time-consuming but effective, especially for complex technical subjects.
Low Effectiveness: Popular but Mostly Ineffective
Highlighting and underlining. This is probably the most popular study technique among students, and it's among the least effective. The problem isn't that highlighting is harmful — it's that it creates an illusion of engagement without actually engaging your brain in meaningful processing. You can highlight an entire chapter and learn almost nothing from the process. The physical act of moving a highlighter across text is not cognitively demanding enough to create durable memories. If you're going to highlight, use it sparingly (only the most critical information) and combine it with a more active technique like self-testing or elaborative interrogation.
Rereading. Rereading your textbook or notes is the study equivalent of comfort food — it feels good and produces minimal results. The first read teaches you something; the second read gives you a fluency illusion (the material feels familiar, so you think you've learned it). Research consistently shows that rereading is less effective than practice testing, even when the total study time is the same. One read followed by a recall test beats two reads followed by nothing.
Summarization. Writing summaries of what you've read is better than nothing but worse than practice testing or distributed practice. The effectiveness depends heavily on the quality of the summary — a student who identifies key concepts and relationships will benefit more than one who simply rephrases the original text. For most students, the time spent summarizing would be better spent on practice testing.
Building an Evidence-Based Study Routine
Here's what a daily study session looks like when you combine the high-effectiveness techniques:
- Start with free recall (5 minutes). Before looking at any materials, write down everything you remember from your last study session. This is practice testing with zero preparation required.
- Content learning or review (20–30 minutes). Read new material or review previous material. Use elaborative interrogation as you go — ask yourself "why" and "how" questions about each key concept.
- Practice testing (15–20 minutes). Close your materials and test yourself. Use flashcards, practice problems, or free recall. Rate your confidence honestly on each item.
- Spaced repetition review (10 minutes). Review flashcards that are due in your spaced repetition system. These are items from previous sessions that the algorithm has scheduled for review today.
- Interleave if possible. If you're studying multiple subjects, alternate between them rather than doing all of one subject first. Even within a subject, mix different types of problems or topics.
This routine takes about 50–65 minutes and incorporates all of the high-effectiveness techniques. It will feel harder than rereading your notes for an hour. That's because it is harder — and that's exactly why it works better.
Applying This With CramClub
CramClub is built around the techniques at the top of this list. The flashcard system implements practice testing with spaced repetition scheduling. The review mode uses active recall as the default interaction — you produce answers before seeing them. Daily quests naturally interleave topics across different subjects. If you want to dive deeper into any individual technique, we've written detailed guides on active recall and spaced repetition scheduling.
The gap between how most students study and how the science says they should study is enormous. Closing that gap doesn't require more time or more effort — it requires different techniques. The research is clear. The only question is whether you'll act on it.
— Peter