The Way We Learn · Episode 5 of 8 · 23 min
The Science of Remembering
A century of memory research says that re-reading notes is close to the least effective way to study. Retrieval practice and spacing build durable memory, but they feel harder and went untaught. The episode shows how science inverted the study-skills hierarchy and why the worst methods stayed popular.
Who's who
- Hermann EbbinghausGerman psychologist who drew the first forgetting curve in 1885
- Henry L. Roediger IIIWashington University memory researcher who popularized the testing effect
- Jeffrey D. KarpickePurdue scientist who co-authored the 2006 retrieval-practice studies
- Robert A. BjorkUCLA psychologist who coined desirable difficulties
- John DunloskyKent State psychologist who led the 2013 ranking of study techniques
- Pam A. MuellerCo-author of the 2014 longhand versus laptop notes study
- Daniel M. OppenheimerCo-author of the 2014 longhand versus laptop notes study
- Mark A. McDanielWashington University psychologist and co-author of Make It Stick
Timeline
- 1885Ebbinghaus publishes his memory experiments and plots the forgetting curve
- 1994Bjork formalizes the concept of desirable difficulties
- 2006Roediger and Karpicke publish flagship evidence for test-enhanced learning
- 2013Dunlosky and colleagues rank ten study techniques, with practice testing and spacing on top
- 2014Make It Stick and the Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard study appear
- 2019-2021Replication attempts find the longhand-notes advantage weaker, mixed or absent
Still debated
The claim that longhand notes beat laptops did not survive direct replication; only the narrower point that verbatim transcription hurts learning holds. Whether desirable difficulties help every learner, and how well lab results transfer to classrooms, are also argued.