Evidence-Based Study Techniques: What Works in 2026 Infographic

Dunlosky et al. evaluated ten techniques students can use on their own, from highlighting to self-testing, and sorted each into high, moderate, or low utility based on whether benefits generalize across ages, materials, and test types. Only two earned high utility: practice testing (retrieval practice) and distributed practice (spacing study over time). Three received moderate utility: elaborative interrogation, self-explanation, and interleaved practice. Five were rated low utility, including summarization, the keyword mnemonic, imagery for text, highlighting or underlining, and rereading. The authors explicitly note that many students lean on rereading and highlighting even though those methods do not consistently raise performance, and they recommend substituting retrieval when possible.

That ranking is not anti-reading; it is anti-passive familiarity. Rereading can lift short-term recognition, especially on massed repeats, yet Dunlosky's team judged it low utility because gains are uneven on comprehension and inference tasks and because spaced rereading still loses to retrieval in head-to-head work. Survey data cited in the same review shows how entrenched rereading is: in one study of undergraduates at a highly selective university, 84 percent listed rereading among their techniques and 55 percent ranked it as their most frequent method. Highlighting suffers a different failure mode. Marking text can help memory for the exact lines you paint, but typical student highlighting is so broad that it adds little beyond rereading and may even hurt inference questions when connections across paragraphs matter more than isolated sentences.

Practice testing addresses the familiarity trap by forcing the brain to reconstruct answers. Adesope et al. meta-analyzed 118 articles reporting 272 independent effect sizes and 15,427 participants. Under a fixed-effects model, practice testing beat non-testing learning conditions with an overall Hedges's g of 0.61. Comparisons were heterogeneous, yet the pattern held against the habits students often substitute: g was 0.51 relative to restudying or rereading, and larger against filler or no-activity controls. Mechanistically, retrieving an answer strengthens the same pathways an exam will demand later, which is why flashcards, blank-page recall, and low-stakes quizzes belong in a weekly plan even when they feel harder than recopying notes.

Distributed practice spreads those retrieval episodes across days or weeks instead of stacking them in one cram block. Cepeda et al. synthesized 839 assessments drawn from 317 experiments in 184 articles and showed that the gap between study sessions and the gap until the final test interact: longer retention goals generally call for longer interstudy intervals, with benefits that are nonmonotonic rather than "more delay always wins." The IES practice guide translates that science into classroom scheduling: expose each major concept on at least two occasions separated by weeks to months, use homework and cumulative quizzes to re-expose material, and treat spacing as an efficiency gain rather than extra total study time. The panel also notes a rule of thumb from laboratory spacing work: the interval between study sessions should not be less than about 5 percent of the time you need to retain the material, while overshooting optimal spacing is usually less costly than cramming.

Interleaving—mixing problem types or topics within a session—earned moderate utility in Dunlosky's review because benefits are promising, especially in mathematics, but the literature is still smaller and null results appear when learners have not mastered individual skills yet. Treat interleaving as a second-phase tactic after you can solve single-type problems, not as a substitute for initial instruction.

A practical weekly architecture follows the evidence hierarchy. First, convert notes into questions and use them on a delayed schedule rather than rereading the same chapter twice in one evening. Second, calendar reviews at increasing intervals aligned with your exam dates, borrowing the IES emphasis on cumulative low-stakes tests. Third, keep highlighting only if it is selective and paired with self-explanation; otherwise swap the highlighter for a blank sheet. Fourth, add interleaved problem sets once basics are stable. The infographic paired with this guide visualizes the utility tiers so you can audit your current routine in minutes and reallocate time toward strategies with the strongest independent support.