How to study a lecture so it stays

Before: ask yourself questions first

Skim the slides and try to answer a few questions about the topic before you study it, even if you are mostly guessing. In one set of experiments, students answered only 5% of pretest questions correctly, yet later remembered the pretested material better than material they had spent the same extra time reading (75% against 56%) [1]. A week later the advantage was smaller but still there. Two conditions matter: you need to see the right answer soon after, and the benefit applies to what the questions asked about, not to the rest of the lecture.

During: take notes for meaning, any way you like

The popular claim that handwriting beats typing does not hold up well. A large replication found no reliable difference on conceptual questions between laptop and longhand notes (.74 against .70), and a pooled analysis of eight studies found essentially no effect (g = 0.04) [2]. Choose whichever lets you follow the argument. What matters is noting why things happen and how they connect, not transcribing every slide.

If the lecture is recorded, short pauses to test yourself help. In one study, students who answered a few questions after each segment of a video lecture mind-wandered about half as much and scored 84% against 59% on the final segment [3].

Right after: make sense of it

Before the lecture fades, turn it into notes that show how the ideas fit together:

• Processes as steps in order. What leads to what, and why.
• Easily confused ideas side by side. Two drugs, two models, two types of error, with what separates them.
• Formulas with every symbol explained.
• The lecture’s own figures where they belong, with words beside them. In one study, text with diagrams improved understanding of how a system works more than text alone, and for beginners simple diagrams did better than detailed ones [4].

Then sketch how the parts connect: a simple concept map with labelled links. Explain each link to yourself. Explaining is one of the better-supported ways to learn, especially aloud; see the Feynman technique.

The next day: recall before you reread

After a night’s sleep, close everything and write or say what you remember. Then check. This single habit, retrieval practice, is one of only two study techniques rated high utility in the major review of the field [5].

Turn what you missed into questions. Cards you make or edit yourself have been found to work better than premade ones, for definitions and for applying ideas [6]. Make the questions ask why and how as well as what, and include at least one real case to apply the idea to.

Through the semester: space it and mix it

Review each lecture again at growing gaps: a few days, then a week or two, then before the exam. Keep the ideas you already know in rotation instead of dropping them after one right answer. See spaced repetition.

As the course goes on, review older lectures alongside newer ones, and practice telling similar ideas apart. That mixing, interleaving, is how you learn to recognize which idea a question needs.

Finally, look for links between lectures. Two ideas taught weeks apart often explain each other, and no single lecture will point it out. Exam questions that ask you to reason, rather than recall, often live in exactly those links.

The whole method on one card

1. Before: guess answers to a few questions.
2. During: notes for meaning, not transcription.
3. Right after: steps, contrasts, formulas, figures, and a map of how they connect.
4. Next day: recall, then check, then make questions.
5. Every week: spaced, mixed review, and links across lectures.

References

1. Richland, L. E., Kornell, N., & Kao, L. S. (2009). The pretesting effect: Do unsuccessful retrieval attempts enhance learning? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 15(3), 243–257. doi.org/10.1037/a0016496
2. Urry, H. L., et al. (2021). Don’t ditch the laptop just yet: A direct replication of Mueller and Oppenheimer’s (2014) Study 1 plus mini meta-analyses across similar studies. Psychological Science, 32(3), 326–339. doi.org/10.1177/0956797620965541
3. Szpunar, K. K., Khan, N. Y., & Schacter, D. L. (2013). Interpolated memory tests reduce mind wandering and improve learning of online lectures. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(16), 6313–6317. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1221764110
4. Butcher, K. R. (2006). Learning from text with diagrams: Promoting mental model development and inference generation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98(1), 182–197. doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.98.1.182
5. Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266
6. Pan, S. C., Zung, I., Imundo, M. N., Zhang, X., & Qiu, Y. (2023). User-generated digital flashcards yield better learning than premade flashcards. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 12(4), 574–588. doi.org/10.1037/mac0000083