Dunlosky et al. 2013: Which Study Techniques Work
Dunlosky et al. (2013) reviewed ten learning techniques. Here is what the evidence says about practice testing, distributed practice, and rereading.
In their review of learning strategies, Dunlosky et al. (2013) evaluated ten common methods to see what actually helps students retain information. They found that only two strategies earned a high utility rating, while popular habits like highlighting and rereading fell into the low utility tier.
The high utility strategies
The authors gave top marks to just two techniques because both reliably improve learning across different subjects, ages, and test formats:
- Practice testing: Actively pulling facts from memory, also called retrieval practice, cements what you learn far better than passive review. In a classic experiment, Roediger and Karpicke (2006) showed that students who used practice testing recalled 61% of prose passages after a week, while students who repeatedly restudied retained only 40%.
- Distributed practice: Spreading study sessions across days or weeks beats cramming the same total hours into a single night. Studying a topic for thirty minutes every two days over two weeks creates much stronger retention than doing one 3.5-hour block before an exam.
Dunlosky et al. (2013) emphasized that practice tests must include feedback. Testing yourself without checking your answers misses the chance to correct errors before wrong facts take root.
Moderate and low utility techniques
Three strategies earned a moderate utility rating from Dunlosky and colleagues:
- Elaborative interrogation: Asking yourself why a specific fact is true.
- Self-explanation: Explaining your reasoning aloud or on paper while working through steps, like solving a calculus derivative.
- Interleaved practice: Mixing different problem types or related topics in one study block instead of finishing one kind completely before moving on.
These three methods help, but they demand more deliberate setup or depend heavily on the subject matter.
At the bottom were highlighting, underlining, and rereading. Studies show that passive marking provides little to no measurable gain and can even make it harder to draw connections across sections of text. Rereading produces similar disappointments. Callender and McDaniel (2009) found that a second reading pass over a text showed minimal to no improvement on test results compared to reading it once.
Why weak methods feel so good
The reason rereading and highlighting remain popular is the illusion of competence. When you review marked sentences or read a chapter a second time, the text looks familiar. That familiarity feels like mastery, tricking you into thinking you know the material.
True recall requires pulling the fact out of your head without looking. When exam day arrives, passive recognition fails because the prompt demands retrieval, not recognition.
To make retrieval practical during regular study sessions, apps like Pen Buddy can turn your notes into review cards automatically, giving you built-in spaced repetition without extra setup.
Close your notes right now, take a blank sheet of paper, and write down every single idea you remember from your last lecture without peeking.
Quick answers
Which study techniques work best according to Dunlosky et al. (2013)?
Practice testing and distributed practice received the highest utility ratings because they consistently improve long-term retention across subjects.
Why did highlighting and rereading receive low utility ratings?
Highlighting and rereading create an illusion of familiarity without improving recall, and rereading a text a second time produces almost no measurable test gains over reading it once.