Mental models are frameworks that represent how something works in the real world. Strong learning develops accurate models by:<ul><li>Challenging existing misconceptions directly</li><li>Creating predictions that can be tested against reality</li><li>Connecting abstract principles to concrete applications</li><li>Developing frameworks that organize knowledge meaningfully</li><li>Building hierarchies of understanding from foundational to advanced concepts</li></ul>When learners develop accurate mental models rather than memorizing procedures, they can solve novel problems, transfer knowledge to new domains, and continue building knowledge systematically rather than accumulating disconnected facts.

Mental Models

Deliberate difficulties are intentional learning challenges that slow down immediate progress but enhance long-term outcomes. These productive obstacles:<ul><li>Create cognitive effort that strengthens memory formation</li><li>Prevent superficial pattern recognition that fails with new problems</li><li>Build conceptual understanding rather than procedural knowledge</li><li>Develop problem-solving skills transferable to new contexts</li><li>Require calibration to avoid excessive difficulty that causes abandonment</li></ul>Effective learning often feels slow and frustrating compared to fluent, error-free practice. This explains why desirable difficulties like varied practice, delayed feedback (in some contexts), and problem-solving before instruction lead to stronger learning despite feeling less productive.

Deliberate Difficulties

Elaboration involves explaining and connecting material to other knowledge. This technique:<ul><li>Enhances recall by creating multiple retrieval pathways</li><li>Builds understanding of underlying principles rather than isolated facts</li><li>Creates meaning by connecting new information to existing knowledge</li><li>Improves transfer to new contexts and applications</li><li>Works through explanations, examples, and analogies</li></ul>Effective elaboration answers questions like: How does this work? Why does this matter? How does this relate to what I already know? What's an example? These connections transform isolated facts into integrated knowledge networks that remain accessible long-term.

Elaboration

Retrieval practice strengthens memory by forcing the brain to reconstruct knowledge. This technique:
<ul>
<li>Directly enhances memory compared to rereading or reviewing</li>
<li>Creates lasting learning by requiring active recall effort</li>
<li>Identifies knowledge gaps that might otherwise remain hidden</li>
<li>Works best when slightly difficult (desirable difficulty)</li>
<li>Becomes more effective when feedback follows attempts</li>
</ul>
The retrieval effort itself strengthens neural pathways, regardless of success. Even unsuccessful retrieval attempts enhance learning when followed by feedback. This explains why flash cards, practice tests, and teaching concepts to others build stronger memories than passive review methods.

Retrieval Practice

Learning is deeper and more durable when it's effortful. Learning that's easy is like writing in sand, here today and gone tomorrow.

We're easily seduced into believing that learning is better when it's easier, but the research shows the opposite: when the mind has to work, learning sticks better.

Trying to solve a problem before being taught the solution leads to better learning, even when errors are made in the attempt.

The generation effect shows that self-generated information is remembered better than information merely read or reviewed. This occurs because:
<ul>
<li>Active construction of answers strengthens neural connections</li>
<li>Effort required for generation deepens processing</li>
<li>Connections formed with existing knowledge become stronger</li>
<li>Elaboration naturally occurs during generation attempts</li>
<li>Errors made and corrected during generation enhance learning</li>
</ul>
This principle explains why answering questions before reading material, completing partial notes rather than reviewing complete ones, and attempting to solve problems before being shown solutions all enhance learning compared to passive review.

Generation Effect

Spaced practice distributes learning over time rather than cramming it into single sessions. Research shows:<ul><li>Spacing creates partial forgetting that enhances subsequent learning</li><li>The harder the retrieval, the stronger the memory formed</li><li>Optimal spacing increases as time passes (expanding retrieval)</li><li>Interleaving topics strengthens discrimination between similar concepts</li><li>Forgetting is actually an essential component of effective learning</li></ul>This approach directly contradicts common practice. Most students mass their practice (cramming), which produces rapid short-term gains that create the illusion of learning while failing to produce durable knowledge.

Spaced Practice

Metacognition—thinking about your thinking—enables selection of effective learning strategies. Students with strong metacognitive skills:<ul><li>Engage in retrieval practice rather than passive rereading</li><li>Space their learning instead of cramming</li><li>Self-test regularly to identify knowledge gaps</li><li>Connect new information to existing knowledge</li><li>Reflect on their learning approaches and adjust based on results</li></ul>This learning literacy separates successful students from those who work hard but ineffectively. Understanding how memory works allows learners to implement evidence-based practices rather than relying on intuition about what feels productive.

Metacognition

Interleaving involves mixing different topics or types of problems within a single study session. This approach:
<ul>
<li>Forces the brain to continually retrieve different solution strategies</li>
<li>Builds ability to discriminate between problem types</li>
<li>Prevents reliance on contextual cues from blocked practice</li>
<li>Feels more difficult but produces stronger learning</li>
<li>Creates flexibility in applying knowledge to new situations</li>
</ul>
While blocked practice (focusing on one topic at a time) creates smooth, fast initial learning, interleaving builds the ability to recognize when to apply different approaches—a crucial skill in real-world application that blocked practice fails to develop.

Interleaving

Calibration refers to the accuracy of our judgments about what we know and can do. Research shows:<ul><li>Most learners are poorly calibrated, overestimating their abilities</li><li>Unskilled individuals suffer from a double curse—they lack both skill and the ability to recognize their lack of skill</li><li>Objective testing with immediate feedback improves calibration</li><li>Self-testing reveals gaps invisible during review or rereading</li><li>Reflection on errors enhances future calibration</li></ul>Poor calibration explains why students continue using ineffective study methods despite evidence that they don't work. They mistake familiarity for mastery and attribute failures to external factors rather than flawed approaches.

Calibration

Fluency illusions trick us into believing we've mastered material when we've merely become familiar with it. This happens because:
<ul>
<li>Rereading creates recognition that feels like recall ability</li>
<li>Highlighting produces familiarity without improving retrieval</li>
<li>Massed practice (cramming) inflates confidence without building lasting knowledge</li>
<li>Fluent processing is mistaken for understanding</li>
<li>Self-assessment is notoriously unreliable</li>
</ul>
The feeling of knowing is a poor indicator of actual learning. Material that comes to mind easily due to repeated exposure creates the illusion of mastery, when in fact it merely indicates short-term familiarity that quickly fades without retrieval practice.

Illusion of Knowing

Forget cramming, re-reading, and highlighting—these popular study methods don't work. This game-changing book reveals scientifically-proven learning techniques that feel harder but create lasting knowledge. Backed by cognitive psychology, these evidence-based strategies explain why struggle, mistakes, and even forgetting are actually crucial parts of effective learning. Whether you're a student, teacher, professional, or lifelong learner, these practical techniques will transform how you approach learning anything new and ensure that knowledge actually sticks.

To most of us, learning something "the hard way" implies wasted time and effort. Good teaching, we believe, should be creatively tailored to the different learning styles of students and should use strategies that make learning easier. Make It Stick turns fashionable ideas like these on their head. Drawing on recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines, the authors offer concrete techniques for becoming more productive learners. Memory plays a central role in our ability to carry out complex cognitive tasks, such as applying knowledge to problems never before encountered and drawing inferences from facts already known. New insights into how memory is encoded, consolidated, and later retrieved have led to a better understanding of how we learn. Grappling with the impediments that make learning challenging leads both to more complex mastery and better retention of what was learned. Many common study habits and practice routines turn out to be counterproductive. Underlining and highlighting, rereading, cramming, and single-minded repetition of new skills create the illusion of mastery, but gains fade quickly. More complex and durable learning come from self-testing, introducing certain difficulties in practice, waiting to re-study new material until a little forgetting has set in, and interleaving the practice of one skill or topic with another. Speaking most urgently to students, teachers, trainers, and athletes, Make It Stick will appeal to all those interested in the challenge of lifelong learning and self-improvement.

Peter C. Brown is a writer and former management consultant.

Peter C. Brown

Henry L. Roediger III is James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at Washington University in St. Louis.

Henry L. Roediger III

Mark A. McDaniel is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Integrative Research on Cognition, Learning, and Education (CIRCLE) at Washington University in St. Louis.

Retrieval Practice

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Deliberate Difficulties