How to study with friends: 7 study group techniques that actually work

Is studying with friends effective?

It can be, for specific reasons. Other people ask you questions you wouldn't ask yourself, catch mistakes you'd never notice, and make you explain things out loud, all of which force you to retrieve and organise what you know. Research on peer discussion backs this up: in a study published in Science, Smith and colleagues (2009) found that students answered conceptual questions better after discussing them with classmates, even in groups where nobody had known the right answer at the start.

The catch is that none of these benefits come from simply sitting together. A group that rereads slides side by side gets the weaknesses of rereading, plus distraction. The techniques below keep the useful parts.

7 study group techniques that work

1. Prepare on your own first

A study group is for testing and discussing, not for first contact with the material. Agree on the topic in advance and have everyone go through it alone before you meet. If one person turns up unprepared, the session turns into a lecture for them.

2. Quiz each other from memory

Take turns asking questions and answering without notes. This is retrieval practice, one of the best-supported study methods there is: Roediger and Karpicke (2006) showed that practising recall leaves far more in memory a week later than spending the same time rereading. A group makes it easier, because someone else is holding the questions. Read more in our guide to active recall vs rereading.

3. Explain the answer, not just the letter

After each answer, say why it's right, and why the other options are wrong. Explaining forces you to organise what you know, and even expecting to teach helps: Nestojko and colleagues (2014) found that people who studied a text expecting to teach it recalled more of it, and recalled it in a better-organised way, than people who expected a test.

4. Argue about the wrong answers

The most valuable minutes in a session come when two people disagree. Don't settle it by looking up the answer straight away: have each side make its case first, then check the source. This is the idea behind peer instruction, a method developed by Eric Mazur at Harvard, where students discuss a question with neighbours before the answer is revealed. Crouch and Mazur (2001) reported a decade of improved conceptual understanding with it.

5. Split the material and write questions for each other

Give each person a section to turn into questions before the session. Writing a good question forces you to understand the material, and especially the mistakes people make about it. Then swap: everyone answers questions they didn't write.

6. Keep it small, focused and timed

Three or four people is plenty. In a bigger group, some people stop talking and others stop listening. Set an agenda (one or two topics) and an end time, and keep phones away during work blocks. Fifty minutes of quizzing followed by a break beats an open-ended afternoon.

7. Make it a game

A little competition keeps everyone engaged and adds a small amount of exam-like pressure while you're still learning. Keep score of questions answered, or play a timed quiz against each other. In Ace duels, two people play the same questions, built from your own lecture material, taking turns against a 15-second clock, with the correct answer shown after every turn, so the argument about the wrong ones starts right away.

Common study group mistakes

• Rereading together. It feels social and productive, and it's the least effective thing you can do as a group.
• One person lecturing. The explainer learns, everyone else listens passively. Rotate who explains.
• No agenda. Without a topic and an end time, the session drifts into gossip.
• Agreeing too fast. If the group settles on an answer without checking the source, everyone can learn the same mistake.
• Only studying together. Group sessions work best on top of your own study, not instead of it.

How to study with friends online

The same rules apply on a video call: prepare alone, quiz from memory, explain, argue, and keep it timed. Share questions rather than screens full of notes, and agree that cameras stay on during work blocks. Shorter, more frequent online sessions tend to work better than one long call.

A simple study group plan

1. Before: agree on one topic; everyone studies it alone and writes five questions.
2. First 40 minutes: swap questions and quiz each other from memory; explain every answer.
3. Break: ten minutes away from the desk.
4. Next 30 minutes: go back to every question someone got wrong and argue it out, then check the source.
5. Last 10 minutes: each person names the two things they're still unsure about. That's the agenda for next time.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. Smith, M. K., Wood, W. B., Adams, W. K., Wieman, C., Knight, J. K., Guild, N., & Su, T. T. (2009). Why peer discussion improves student performance on in-class concept questions. Science, 323(5910), 122–124.
2. Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255.
3. Nestojko, J. F., Bui, D. C., Kornell, N., & Bjork, E. L. (2014). Expecting to teach enhances learning and organization of knowledge in free recall of text passages. Memory & Cognition, 42(7), 1038–1048.
4. Crouch, C. H., & Mazur, E. (2001). Peer Instruction: Ten years of experience and results. American Journal of Physics, 69(9), 970–977.