Heres an interesting article on the efectiveness of various study techniques

and in particularwhich ones have evidence supporting them.

Some of my thoughts on the key fndings:
Self!"planation and #eading
!la$orative learning and selfe"planation were found to $e moderately
efective. %his is similar to the &eynman technique' $ut (d argue the use of
the method was diferent )( mainly use this method to hunt out specifc
misunderstandings' not as a general catchall which is usually too time
consuming as indicated $y the research*.
Summari+ing and highlighting were found to $e inefective. ( was surprised
a$out the fnding on summari+ing' $ut the note on highlighting was what (
e"pected. ,erhaps some of the pro$lem with summari+ing is that it lacks a
feed$ack mechanism to know whether youve actually gathered the key
details-
#ereading was found to $e inefective. .o surprises here. ,assive review
strategies are less efective than active ones.
/isuali+ation and 0nemonics
%he keyword mnemonic )using visual links to memori+e words* was la$elled
1inefective2 $ut pro$a$ly a $etter description of the actual fndings is that it
has more narrow usage.
/isuali+ation while reading was found to $e inefective. ( found this
interesting' given my advice to students to visuali+e. However' it seems like
the issue may $e that visuali+ation while reading is distracting. (n addition'
(ve always felt the ma3or $enefts of visuali+ing are for a$stract su$3ects'
which dont naturally lend themselves to images' as opposed to the concrete
su$3ects measured here.
,ractice and Spacing 4ere %he 0ost !fective 0ethods
,ractice was one of the most efective methods studied. %his was a staple of
the 0(% 5hallenge' pro$a$ly making up 678 of the total time ( spend working
through the courses. ( found it interesting that practice questions were still
efective even when you created the questions yourselfa good alternative if
practice e"ams are unavaila$le.
Spacing efects were shown as $eing efective as well. 9uring the 0(%
5hallenge ( tried to make use of spacing as much as possi$le' doing classes in
parallel after the frst few classes. (t was an unfortunate weakness of the tight
timeconstraint premise of the challenge' however. (d recommend most
students looking to follow my selfeducation attempt to spread out their
learning over a longer period of time and at a lower intensity than ( did.
( fnd the spacing efects on learning to $e somewhat tricky $ecause (ve also
found focus to $e enormously efective for getting things done. :uggling a
couple diferent learning pro3ects at the same time to $e far harder to
manage than $eing dedicated to only one or two.
;ltimately' there may $e a tradeof $etween spacing and focusyou want
the spacing to ensure $etter longterm recall' $ut you want the focus to
actually get the work done.
Science' !"perience and 4hat <ctually 4orks
Scientifc research on the e=cacy of diferent learning techniques has $een a
very useful counter$alance for me to the methods (ve developed through
practical e"perience.
(m only a single data point. <lthough ( collect a lot of o$servations and data
from my students in my courses' the empirical rigor of a selfselected online
course is not the same as a scientifc paper. ,lace$o efects and the lack of
control groups mean that its important to return to the psychological
research for checks and $alances.
However studies are often designed to measure the outcome of a very narrow
set of conditions. (f the conditions change from the e"periment' the results
may $e very diferent. ( end up relying a lot on practical e"perience to fll in
those gaps in my own selflearning eforts.
>pinions (ve 5hanged Since ?earn 0ore' Study ?ess
( fnd myself learning a lot a$out learning' as more research like this comes
out and ( get e"posed to diferent learning situations and am forced to adapt.
4hile ( still support the most of the main points of ?earn 0ore' Study ?ess'
(ve evolved considera$ly on my views since then.
Here are the ma3or opinions (ve shifted:
#epetition isnt a $ad thing )even if repetition alone pro$a$ly is*.
Speed reading is only narrowly useful. (n most learning situations' reading
at a deeper level of processing and reading more slowly is $etter.
,ractice and active recall should $e a $ulk of your strategy. ( havent given
enough emphasis on active recall in the past' even though it should pro$a$ly
form a large chunk of your learning time.
Spaced repetition software can $e quite useful. (ve @ipped my thinking on
this point since ( mentioned it earlier. %o me the disadvantages of
deconte"tuali+ed and unprioriti+ed knowledge are outweighed $y the
automatic structuring of review and active recall.
9ont highlight. ( used to have highlighting as part of an active reading
strategy' $ut now (m inclined to avoid it altogether. %aking sparse notes is
$etter.
Holistic learning is still valid for law and languages. ( e"pressed dou$ts in
my initial e$ook as to whether learning via connections was appropriate for
densely factual su$3ects' $ut since then (ve found it useful for these su$3ects
nonetheless.
< ma3or challenge for me is that' in spending a lot of time learning' my
opinions grow with time. Hopefully my minor reversals and shifts in emphasis
dont irk or confuse longtime readers too much. %he alternative is to $e
dogmatic' an unsupporta$le longterm strategy.