Study habits with research behind them

By Learnality. November 2026.

Most students study by rereading and highlighting. It feels like work, and the page starts to look familiar. But a page that looks familiar is not the same as an answer you can recall on a test. Some habits have far more support.

The 2013 review

In 2013, John Dunlosky and four colleagues reviewed hundreds of studies on ten common study techniques. They gave each one a rating of high, moderate or low usefulness. The rating was based on how well it held up across different students, subjects and kinds of tests.

Two techniques got the top rating: practice testing, and spacing study over time. Rereading, highlighting and summarizing were rated low. That does not mean they are useless. It means the evidence for them was weaker or less consistent.

Practice testing

Practice testing means pulling information out of your memory instead of putting it in again. It is not about grades. It can be flashcards, a blank page or a friend asking you questions.

In a 2006 study, Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke had students read short passages. Some read the passage again. Others took a practice test on it. On a test five minutes later, the rereading group did a little better. On a test one week later, the practice test group remembered much more.

Here are some ways to start.

Close the book and write down everything you remember about the topic. Then open the book and check.
Turn the headings in your notes into questions, and answer them out loud.
Use flashcards, and keep the hard ones in the pile until you get them right more than once.
Try old quiz questions before you look at the answers.

It feels harder than rereading. That is normal. Researchers think the effort of pulling an answer from memory is part of what makes it stick. Getting an answer wrong and then checking it is still good practice.

Spacing

Spacing means spreading study over several short sessions instead of one long one. One hour split across three days tends to beat three hours the night before.

In 2006, Nicholas Cepeda and colleagues pulled together the results of more than 300 experiments on this. Overall, spreading study out led to better recall later than cramming did. Cramming can get you through a quiz the next morning. It is much weaker a few weeks later, when the final exam comes.

Here are some ways to start.

When a test date is set, plan short sessions on several days, not one long one.
Spend ten minutes on last week's material before you start new work.
Put review dates on a calendar so you do not have to remember them.

Why rereading feels so good

Rereading is easy. Each time you see a page, it feels more familiar, and familiar feels like knowing. But on a test there is no page to look at. You have to bring the answer up on your own. Practice testing trains that exact skill, which is why it can feel slow and clumsy at first.

Put the two together

The two habits work well as a pair. Space your sessions out, and spend each one testing yourself instead of rereading. A short self-quiz on Monday, again on Wednesday and again on Saturday is a simple plan. Each round shows you what you still need to work on, so the next round can be shorter.

Here is what that could look like with a biology test on Friday.

Monday: read the chapter once. Then close it and write down the main ideas from memory.
Tuesday: make ten flashcards from the parts you missed. Go through them twice.
Wednesday: answer the questions at the end of the chapter without notes. Check every answer.
Thursday: go through the flashcards again, and quiz yourself on anything still shaky. Then sleep.

That plan takes about the same total time as one long night of rereading. It just spreads the time out and spends it on recall.

Two more worth trying

The review gave a middle rating to a few more techniques. Explaining to yourself why each step works, called self-explanation, helped in many studies. So did mixing different kinds of problems in one session, called interleaving. Most of the interleaving studies were in math. Add them once the first two feel normal.

What this does not promise

These results are averages across many studies. They tell you what tends to help most students, not what will happen for you. Your teacher's advice about a specific class still matters. And no technique makes up for missing sleep or too little time.

Where Learnality fits

Learnality cites this review for these habits, not for its own questions. Our questions ask what you say you do when you study. The result is a self-report of habits, not a score of how well you study.

If your result shows you lean on one approach, keep it, and add a little practice testing or spacing to it. Then see what changes over a few weeks.