Active Recall vs Rereading: What the Research Found

Rereading notes is probably the most common way students review material before a test, but a frequently cited 2006 study found that it performs worse than a very different strategy for long-term retention: testing yourself on the material instead of rereading it. This effect is often called the testing effect or retrieval practice.

The study behind the claim

The research, published by Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke in the journal Psychological Science in 2006, titled "Test-Enhanced Learning: Taking Memory Tests Improves Long-Term Retention," examined whether taking a memory test on studied material produces better long-term retention than simply studying the material again. According to the study's abstract, the researchers specifically investigated whether the benefit of testing comes only from the fact that tests offer another chance to review the material, or whether testing itself adds something rereading doesn't.

What "taking a memory test" means in this context

In the kind of study design this research describes, taking a memory test means actively trying to recall the material from memory, for example, by closing your notes and writing down everything you remember, rather than looking at the material again while reading it passively. This retrieval process, actively pulling information out of memory rather than having it presented to you again, is the core mechanism the testing effect describes.

Why this matters for how you prepare for an exam

The practical implication of this research is that spending study time testing yourself on material, even without any additional source of correct answers to check against immediately, can produce stronger long-term retention than spending that same time rereading the material again. This runs against a common intuition: rereading feels more comfortable and often makes the material feel more familiar in the moment, but that feeling of familiarity during rereading does not reliably predict how well you'll actually remember the material days or weeks later.

A simple way to apply this to your own studying

Based on the mechanism this research describes, a practical approach to replacing passive rereading with active retrieval might look like this:

• After reading a section of notes or a textbook chapter, close the material and try to write down or say aloud everything you remember about it, without looking back.
• Compare what you wrote or said against the original material only after you've finished trying to recall it, not while you're still trying to recall.
• Focus extra retrieval attempts on the parts you couldn't recall, rather than rereading the parts you already remembered easily.

This process, retrieve first, then check, is the structural difference between active recall and rereading. Rereading skips the retrieval step entirely, since the material is right in front of you the whole time.

This is not about one single trick, it's about a mechanism

It's worth being precise about what this research actually supports: a specific comparison between actively retrieving information from memory versus passively rereading it, and a finding that the former produces better long-term retention. It does not mean every possible method of "testing yourself," regardless of how it's implemented, automatically outperforms every possible method of rereading in every situation. The mechanism described, active retrieval rather than passive re-exposure, is what the evidence points to, which is why flashcards, practice questions, or simply trying to explain a concept from memory all tend to work by the same underlying principle, rather than being separate, unrelated tricks.

Why this is easy to overlook as a student

Rereading tends to feel productive because the material becomes more familiar each time you look at it, and that growing familiarity is often mistaken for growing knowledge. Active recall, by contrast, often feels harder and more frustrating in the moment, especially when you draw a blank on something you thought you knew. That discomfort is frequently a sign the method is working as intended, not a sign you're doing something wrong, since the effort of retrieval is part of what makes the memory more durable afterward.

A second study found the same pattern against a stronger comparison

A 2011 study by Jeffrey Karpicke and Janell Blunt, published in the journal Science, compared retrieval practice directly against elaborative studying with concept mapping, a technique where students build a visual diagram connecting ideas in the material, which is generally considered a more active and effortful study method than simple rereading. Even against this stronger comparison, the study found that practicing retrieval produced greater gains in meaningful learning than elaborative studying with concept mapping. This matters because it shows the benefit of retrieval practice isn't just that it beats a weak baseline like rereading, it also outperformed a more sophisticated alternative study technique in this comparison.

Key takeaways

• A 2006 study by Roediger and Karpicke, published in Psychological Science, found that actively testing yourself on material produces better long-term retention than rereading it.
• The key mechanism is active retrieval, pulling information from memory yourself, rather than passive re-exposure to the same material.
• A practical study method based on this research is to attempt recall first, then check your answer against the original material afterward, not the reverse order.
• The feeling of familiarity from rereading does not reliably predict how well you'll remember material later.
• This research applies specifically to retrieval-based methods like self-testing or flashcards, not to every possible study technique labeled as "testing."