4 Counterintuitive Truths About Learning, Backed by Science

Why Studying Harder Isn't Always Studying Smarter

We've all been there: hours spent with a textbook, highlighter in hand, rereading chapter after chapter. We feel productive, convinced we're mastering the material. But when it comes time to recall that information (for an exam or a real-world problem), it's gone. This frustrating cycle isn't a personal failing; it's often the result of using the wrong tools for the job.

Recent findings in educational psychology reveal that many of our most common learning habits are surprisingly ineffective. The good news is that the same science also points to far more powerful alternatives.

This post will uncover 4 surprising, science-backed principles that can transform how you learn, making your efforts more effective and the knowledge you gain more lasting.

1. Your Favorite Study Habits Are Probably the Least Effective

Let's start with a direct and surprising claim: popular study techniques like highlighting, underlining, rereading, and summarizing are rated by researchers as having "low" effectiveness. While they may be the most common strategies students use, they do very little to build durable knowledge.

This finding comes from a landmark systematic review by researchers John Dunlosky, Katherine Rawson, and their colleagues in 2013. They analyzed the utility of ten common learning techniques, categorizing them based on the evidence. The results are eye-opening.

Science-Backed Learning Techniques

High Effectiveness

• Practice testing: Actively quiz yourself to strengthen memory and spot what you don’t yet know.

• Distributed practice: Space your study sessions over time instead of cramming to make learning stick.

Moderate Effectiveness

• Interleaved practice: Mix different topics or problem types to train your brain to choose the right strategy.

• Elaborative interrogation: Ask yourself why something is true to connect new ideas with what you already know.

• Self-explanation: Explain concepts in your own words to organize and integrate your understanding.

Low Effectiveness

• Rereading: Simply rereading text feels familiar but adds little to real learning.

• Highlighting and Underlining: Marking text helps only when used sparingly and followed by deeper review.

• Summarizing: Summarize key ideas in your own words to clarify what truly matters.

• Mnemonics: Link a new word to a familiar-sounding word and create a mental image connecting them.

• Imagery for Text: Form mental pictures to better remember concrete or visual information.

Why do these popular strategies so often fail us? A primary reason is that they create a "false feeling of learning," leading to inaccurate metacognition: the mistaken belief that we know the material well. But the problems go deeper.

Some of these strategies aren't inherently bad, but are surprisingly complex procedures that require extensive training to be effective (like summarization), while others are only useful in a very narrow range of situations (like using imagery for text). Ultimately, they fail because they don't force our brains to do the difficult, generative work necessary for deep, long-term learning.

2. The Best Way to Learn Something Is to Test Yourself on It

In contrast to the low-effectiveness habits, the same review by Dunlosky et al. (2013) identified "practice testing" as a strategy with "high" effectiveness. This is the simple act of self-testing or taking practice tests on the material you need to learn.

While it sounds simple, the benefits go far beyond just checking what you know. Research shows two powerful, additional benefits of practice testing:

• It reduces test anxiety, making you more comfortable and confident during actual assessments.

• It improves knowledge transfer, meaning you're better able to apply what you've learned to new situations, not just perform well on a specific test.

This is because testing isn't just a measure of memory; it actively strengthens the "memory trace" and provides "accurate metacognition," forcing your brain to engage in the generative processes that passive rereading avoids. This reframes tests from a dreaded judgment tool into a powerful, proactive engine for learning.

3. If It Doesn't Feel a Little Hard, You're Probably Not Learning

Effective learning shouldn't feel punishingly difficult, but it shouldn't feel completely effortless, either. The key is finding that “sweet spot” researchers call desirable difficulty: when something is just a bit beyond your comfort zone (not too easy, not too hard).

When study material is too easy or when you're given too much guidance, it can actually be counterproductive. This is known as the "expertise reversal effect," where instructional support that helps a beginner can hinder a more advanced learner by getting in the way of them processing the information more deeply.

You can use this principle as a practical guide for your own study sessions. If what you're doing feels completely effortless (like passively rereading notes you already understand) it might be a sign that you aren't engaging in the "generative learning processes" required to build durable knowledge. A little bit of struggle is a signal that your brain is working to make meaningful connections.

4. In the Age of Google, What You Know Still Matters – A Lot

In an era where any fact is just a search away, it's easy to fall for the myth: "Why bother learning something if everything is on the Internet?" This confuses having access to a shallow breadth of information with possessing a deep, integrated understanding.

This is where we see the counterintuitive evidence that knowing more isn't the same as knowing better. A 2008 study by Schwartz and colleagues found that the depth of instruction students received in high school science topics, even if it was deep instruction on just one core topic, was a better predictor of their college grades than superficially covering many topics.

This is because deep knowledge is not just a collection of facts; it is the mental framework required to integrate new information, solve complex problems, and think critically. You can't Google your way to wisdom. A strong foundation of conceptual knowledge is what allows you to understand and act effectively in the world, a skill that search engines can support but never replace.

Conclusion: A Final Thought on Active Learning

The common thread running through these principles is a single, powerful idea: effective learning is an active, challenging, and generative process, not a passive one. It's less about pouring information into your brain and more about actively pulling it out, connecting it with what you already know, and applying it in new contexts.

Now that you know how your brain truly learns, what is the one ineffective habit you will replace with a more effective one?

A Deeper Dive Into Science-Backed Learning Techniques

High Effectiveness

• Practice testing: The best way to learn is to test yourself, not just reread. When you quiz yourself (using flashcards, practice questions, or even writing what you remember) you force your brain to retrieve information, which strengthens memory far more than passively reviewing. It also helps you notice what you don’t know yet, lowers anxiety for real exams, and makes it easier to apply what you’ve learned in new situations. Think of testing as studying, not as checking.

• Distributed practice: Distributed practice simply means spreading your study sessions over time instead of cramming the night before. Our brains need breaks to process and consolidate information. When you review something after a little time has passed, it feels slightly harder, but that small struggle is what strengthens learning. A good rule is to revisit material just before you start forgetting it. A few short study sessions spaced across days or weeks are far more effective than one long, exhausting one.

Moderate Effectiveness

• Interleaved practice: Interleaved practice means mixing up topics or problem types instead of studying one thing at a time. For example, rather than doing ten math problems of the same type in a row, mix different kinds together. This forces your brain to notice what makes each problem unique and choose the right strategy each time. It feels slower and more confusing than “blocking” your practice, but that’s a sign your brain is working harder, and learning more deeply. It’s especially effective for problem-solving or skill-based subjects.

• Elaborative interrogation: This technique is all about asking yourself “why.” When you read a fact or concept, don’t just accept it, explain why it’s true or why it makes sense. For instance, if you read that plants need sunlight to grow, ask why sunlight matters and try to answer in your own words. This helps your brain connect new ideas to what you already know, which makes the learning meaningful instead of mechanical. It works best when you already have some background knowledge to build on.

• Self-explanation: Self-explanation means teaching yourself as you learn. You might explain how a new idea fits with what you already know, or talk through the steps of a problem you’re solving. For example, while studying how photosynthesis works, you could say aloud how each stage links to what you learned about energy. This helps your brain organize and integrate information rather than just memorize it. It’s powerful for deep understanding, but it only works if you actually reason through the “how” and “why,” not just repeat definitions.

Low Effectiveness

• Rereading: Rereading is one of the most common study habits, and one of the least effective. Reading the same material again can make you feel more confident, but that’s mostly an illusion of familiarity. You recognize the words, but you’re not truly recalling or connecting them. Rereading doesn’t engage your memory or help you apply what you’ve learned. It can be useful as a quick refresher before a test, but it shouldn’t be your main strategy.

• Highlighting and Underlining: Highlighting can make your notes look productive, but it doesn’t do much for actual learning. Most people highlight too much or focus on making the page look neat instead of thinking deeply about what’s important. Highlighting alone doesn’t strengthen memory, it just feels satisfying. It can be helpful as a first step to identify key ideas, but only if you then use those highlights for something active, like quizzing yourself or explaining the concepts out loud.

• Summarizing: Summarizing involves writing down the main points of what you’ve read. In theory, this should help you focus on what matters and organize your thoughts. In practice, though, most students aren’t trained to summarize well, and it often turns into copying sentences or leaving out key details. When done properly, it can support understanding, but it doesn’t automatically improve memory or transfer. Without extra steps like self-testing or elaborating, summarization stays a passive exercise.

• Mnemonics: The keyword mnemonic uses word associations and mental images to remember information. For instance, to learn that “carne” means “meat” in Spanish, you might imagine a car made of meat. This can be fun and effective for memorizing simple vocabulary or lists, especially when learning a new language. However, it doesn’t help you build real understanding or long-term connections. It’s a quick trick, not a deep-learning tool.

• Imagery for Text: Imagery for text means creating pictures in your mind as you read. This can work well for material that’s easy to visualize, like imagining a seed sprouting when reading about plant growth, but it’s much less useful for abstract ideas, like “justice” or “gravity.” It’s also hard to maintain over long texts. While mental images can make learning more vivid and memorable in certain cases, they don’t generally lead to deep or transferable understanding.