Best Study Techniques in 2026, Ranked by Research

The best study techniques, according to decades of research, are practice testing (quizzing yourself from memory) and spaced practice (spreading your reviews over days and weeks). In the most-cited review of the evidence, those were the only two of ten common methods rated "high utility." Rereading and highlighting, two of the habits students rely on most, were rated low.

That doesn't mean everything else is useless. A few techniques are excellent in specific situations, and some popular ones are fine as a first step but weak as your whole plan.

This page ranks the main study methods by evidence, shows which one fits which subject and exam, and ends with a weekly routine that combines them. Each technique has its own in-depth guide, linked as you go.

How were these study techniques ranked?

The ranking below comes from two large reviews.

In 2013, John Dunlosky and four colleagues reviewed the research on ten techniques students actually use. They didn't just ask "does it work in a lab?" They asked whether the benefit held across different learners, materials, kinds of test, and delays before the test. Techniques that helped broadly got "high utility"; techniques with narrow or inconsistent benefits got "low."

In 2021, Gregory Donoghue and John Hattie ran a meta-analysis of the same ten techniques: 242 studies, 1,619 effects, and almost 170,000 participants. Their numbers measure how much each technique beat a comparison group.

Two things stand out. First, the same two techniques top both reviews. Second, every technique beat its comparison condition, which helps explain why weak methods like rereading still feel like they work. The meta-analysis has a big limit, though: 93% of the outcomes tested surface facts, and 68% were measured within a day. Exams test deeper understanding, days or weeks later.

That's why Dunlosky's ratings are the better guide to what to do. Rereading was rated low because its benefits are inconsistent and practice testing does the same job better. Interleaving was rated moderate in 2013 because it had been tested in few settings; since then, large classroom trials in math have found big gains (more below).

The two techniques with the strongest evidence

1. Practice testing (active recall)

Close the book and answer a question before you look. Flashcards, past papers, blank-page recall, and explaining a topic from memory all count. Retrieval strengthens the memory you pull out and shows you exactly what you can't yet produce.

The catch: it only works if you commit to an answer before checking, and then fix what you got wrong. The active recall guide covers the key study, six ways to do it, and a two-week starter plan. For the research on testing as a learning tool, see retrieval practice explained.

2. Spaced practice (distributed practice)

Study the same material in several shorter sessions on different days instead of one long session. The longer you need to remember something, the bigger the gaps can be.

A 2008 study of more than 1,350 people put numbers on this. The best gap between study sessions was about 20–40% of the time until the test when the test was a week away, falling to 5–10% when the test was a year away. In practice:

• Test in a week: review after 1–3 days.
• Board exam a year away: review each topic every 3–5 weeks, with extra reviews for anything you miss.
• Anything in between: scale the gap with the time left. If a review feels like starting over, the gap was too long; shorten the next one.

Spacing and testing work best together: space your quizzes, not your rereading. Flashcard apps automate this with spaced repetition. The spaced repetition guide explains the schedules, and distributed vs massed practice explains why cramming fails.

Techniques that work in the right situation

Interleaving: for problem-solving subjects

Interleaving means mixing problem types (slope, then probability, then volume) instead of doing 20 of the same kind. It forces you to choose the right method, which is what exams demand. In a 2020 trial with 787 seventh graders in 54 math classes, students who did interleaved homework scored 61% on a surprise test a month later, against 38% for students who did blocked homework.

It helps most for things that are easy to confuse: math and physics problem types, or categories that look alike, such as painters' styles. It does not help with plain vocabulary lists. See the interleaving guide for example problem sets.

Elaborative interrogation and self-explanation: for understanding

Both turn reading into thinking. Elaborative interrogation means asking "why would that be true?" about each fact ("Why do arteries have thicker walls than veins?"). Self-explanation means explaining each step of a worked example or each sentence of a text to yourself ("This step divides both sides by 2 because…").

They were rated moderate mainly because they had been studied less in real classrooms, not because they failed. Use them during your first pass through new material, before you switch to testing. Explaining aloud as if teaching someone, the Feynman technique, combines self-explanation with recall.

Which study technique should you use?

Pick by what the exam will ask you to do, not by what feels comfortable.

If you only change one habit, change this: after every reading or lecture, close everything and write what you remember. That single swap turns passive review into practice testing.

Study habits to drop or demote

These habits survive because they feel easy and productive. The methods above feel harder, and that effort is part of why they work; researchers call it a desirable difficulty.

Rereading. It builds familiarity, which feels like knowing. Read once to understand, then test yourself instead of reading again.

Highlighting. Marking text takes little thinking and never makes you retrieve anything. If you highlight, turn each highlight into a question later. Our post on why highlighting fails explains the research.

Summarizing as your main method. Summaries help some students on some tests, but the benefits are inconsistent. A summary written from memory is far more useful, because then it's practice testing.

Cramming. One long session the night before can get you through tomorrow's test, but massed study fades much faster than spaced study. That hurts on finals and in later courses that build on the same material.

Matching study to your "learning style." A 2008 review by Pashler and colleagues looked for experiments showing that teaching to a person's preferred style improves results and found virtually no evidence. The full story is in the learning styles myth.

Where Feynman, Cornell notes, mind maps, and Pomodoro fit

These popular methods weren't part of the ten-technique review. Here is how they fit the evidence:

• Feynman technique: self-explanation plus retrieval. Strong, especially for concepts. Explaining to a real classmate adds their questions, which is the protégé effect.
• Cornell notes: the cue column on the left is a built-in self-test. Cover the notes and answer the cues, and Cornell becomes practice testing. See the Cornell note-taking guide.
• Mind maps: making a map with your notes open is elaboration, not retrieval. In a 2011 Science study, students who practiced recall learned more from a science text than students who built concept maps, even on questions that required inferences. Draw your mind map from memory instead.
• Pomodoro: a time-management method, not a learning technique. It helps you start and keeps sessions short. Fill the 25 minutes with recall, as in Pomodoro with active recall.

A weekly routine that combines the best study techniques

This routine assumes one course and about 45 minutes a day. Scale the time up or down; keep the structure.

Every session (45 minutes):

1. Warm-up recall (5 min). Without notes, write what you remember from the last session. Check it.
2. New material (20 min). Read or watch once. Pause after each section to explain it in your own words or ask "why?".
3. Close the book (10 min). Blank-page recall of today's material, then check and mark gaps in a different color.
4. Mixed practice (10 min). Questions or problems from older topics, shuffled. Turn today's gaps into flashcards or questions for later.

Across the week:

Every topic gets retrieved several times, on different days, mixed with other topics. That is practice testing, spacing, and interleaving in one routine, with no rereading. For a full exam countdown, see how to prepare for exams, and for making the routine stick, building a study routine.