Highlighting feels productive and does almost nothing for recall. In the study described here, undergraduates who read an 8,000-word article were split into groups - no highlighting, passive highlighting and active highlighting - and highlighting did not improve performance. The reason is that marking text is recognition, not retrieval. Reading a page and then writing what you remember beats colouring it in.
For context: 67.0% of GCSE results in England in summer 2026 were grade 4 or above. — gov.uk, Qualification results in England, summer 2026
Today I want to talk about a popular studying technique amongst students - highlighting.
What is let me tell you about a scientific study?
For those that have been my students for the last few years know that I love to teach based on proven science and not merely what someone thinks works well.So, several years ago scientists carried out an important piece of research where they got Undergraduates (university students) to read 8,000 word articles about boredom and city life.
The undergraduates were divided into 3 groups:(1) control (No highlighting)(2) passive highlighting (This group was given text which was already highlighted)(3) active highlighting. (This group was told to highlight particularly important material in the text)
The three groups were each tested a week later, and the group that actively highlighted did no better than the control group :(Yes, unfortunately this very popular idea amongst students is not something that makes any difference to your learning abilities. To see the original research please check out (Fowler & Barker 1974 in Journal of Applied Psychology).
This basic result has been replicated many times.
What is it is worse than you thought?
In most situations that have been examined and with most participants, highlighting does little to boost performance.
As a matter of fact it might actually hurt performance on higher-level tasks that require inference making.
Here is Prof. Dunlovsky (2013), someone who has done extensive research into study techniques–“When students are using a highlighter, they often focus on one concept at a time and are less likely to integrate the information they’re reading into a larger whole. This could undermine comprehension of that material”.
Unfortunately many students are committed to ineffective strategies, hopefully this newsletter highlights to you one of those terrible techniques.
Perhaps I should run a course for parents on evidence based learning techniques in the future?
What else is worth reading?
- 🧠Why learn?
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- The Benefits of Learning to Cook: A Guide to Enhancing Your Life…
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What are the honest limits of this advice?
The evidence behind study methods is measured as an average across many students, not a promise about one. The EEF toolkit reports months of additional progress on average, with real variation underneath. What works also depends on the subject and where the gaps are.
Officially, this is what a pass is worth — the government lists it as a Level 2 qualification:
“GCSE — grades 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4 or grades A*, A, B, C.” — gov.uk, What qualification levels mean
What research supports these methods?
The study techniques on this page are not our opinion. Each comes from published cognitive-science research, linked here so you can read the original:
- Karpicke & Roediger, Science (2008) — testing yourself beats re-reading, by a wide margin
- Cepeda et al., Psychological Bulletin (2006) — spacing sessions out beats cramming
- Dunlosky et al., Psychological Science in the Public Interest (2013) — practice testing and spacing rated highest of ten techniques; highlighting among the lowest