Does Memorization Count as Higher-Order Thinking? Here’s the Science
Is memorization the enemy of critical thinking? Or is it actually a friend?
Educators love to champion creativity, problem-solving, and collaboration as the hallmarks of great teaching and essential life skills.
But does that mean memorization doesn’t matter — or could it actually fuel those very skills? What comes first: higher-order thinking or the building blocks of memory? The chicken or the egg?
This isn’t just a question for philosophers or cognitive scientists — it’s something educators on the ground grapple with, too. The folks in the Anti-Boring Learning Lab often put it into words better than I can. Here’s a masterful example from Module 1: The Science of Studying:
💬 “…this seems like a great framework for memorizing stuff. But there is lots of learning that doesn’t require or involve memorization of content. In addition to lesson content, I also want my students to learn things like critical thinking, creativity, problem-solving, persistence, collaboration etc. … Can the Study Cycle be applied to these skills as well, even though they don’t take the form of concrete information to be deposited in a student’s brain?”
First of all — what a smart question! It’s exactly the kind of reflective curiosity I love from educators in the Lab. They don’t just accept new frameworks; they poke, prod, and ask how those frameworks apply to the kinds of learning that really matter.
Why Read This Post?
If you’re short on time, here are the main points we’ll be unpacking:
Memorization isn’t the enemy of critical thinking. Retrieval practice builds the flexible knowledge students need to apply ideas in new contexts.
New research confirms that retrieval fuels transfer. Students who quizzed themselves weren’t just better at recall — they were also more likely to notice when a concept applied in real life.
The Study Cycle makes retrieval practical. With simple, student-tested strategies, educators can help learners move from memorization to higher-order thinking.
This post will resonate most with:
Academic coaches, executive function coaches, and tutors who are always looking for new ways to connect science-backed study strategies with student motivation.
Classroom teachers who want to bring the science of learning into their lessons without feeling like they’re “teaching to the test.”
Special education teachers and learning specialists who want proof that the work they’re doing really matters for students’ higher-order thinking.
Ok, and now: Keep reading if you want the details filled in!
🌀 A Quick Review of the Study Cycle
New members ask me some version of that participant’s question almost every time they encounter the Study Cycle. So let’s make sure we’re all looking at the same thing.
The first thing members learn when they join our program is the Anti-Boring Study Cycle — my way of consolidating “the least educators need to know” about the science of learning so students can launch into effective, self-led studying.
Here’s the visual model of the Study Cycle (the mini-lecture that anchors the Anti-Boring Toolkit):
Encoding — taking in new information (like reading, listening, watching, or practicing).
Retrieval — practicing pulling information back out of memory, without looking at your notes or the book. This is the single most effective way we know to strengthen learning.
Re-encoding — returning to the material, but in a new way (like reorganizing notes, teaching it to someone else, or applying it to a different problem).
That’s the Study Cycle in a nutshell.
👉 If you’d like to see me model this in action, you can watch the Study Cycle mini-lecture for free in our Anti-Boring Learning Lab Resource Library.
Now, let’s circle back to the question: if retrieval is central to the cycle, does that mean it’s only about memorization? Or does it actually support higher-order thinking, too?
📖 From Lab Questions to Learning Science Answers
Imagine my delight when I opened LinkedIn — which I’ve purposefully cultivated to be filled with the voices of top cognitive scientists and other science of learning experts — and spotted a post by Carl Hendrick sharing a hot-off-the-press study that speaks directly to this concern.
The headline? Retrieval practice doesn’t just boost memory — it helps learners notice when knowledge matters, making transfer more likely.
The study, by Daniel Corral and Shana Carpenter (2025), looked at whether retrieval can support not just factual recall, but also higher-order application. And the results were even more exciting than I expected.
And although the researchers don’t know about my Study Cycle model, the cycle is built on this very science — and the science clearly responds to the Lab participant’s question: Can the Study Cycle apply to skills like critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving, or is it “just memorization?”
Huzzah!! To better understand the results, let’s actually study what the study studied about studying (heehee. I couldn’t resist).
🔬 What the Study Found
Here’s what the researchers did:
Over 700 college students learned some super tricky concepts like reverse causation and third variable problems.
Then, students studied what they’d just learned in different ways:
Some practiced retrieval by taking short-answer quizzes and getting feedback.
Others simply restudied the original slides.
Others reviewed Q&A sheets, where both the question and answer were shown together.
Later, everyone took a test that included two types of questions:
Retention questions (factual recall): How well could students remember the exact definitions they’d been taught?
Application questions (transfer): Could they apply those definitions to brand-new scenarios — like an astronomy example about planets and moons?
Here’s the important part: during the study phase, no one practiced application questions. Those only appeared on the final test. The whole point was to see which type of studying best prepared students for higher-order transfer.
And guess what?
Students who practiced retrieval were not only better at remembering definitions — they were also better at answering the application questions.
And this wasn’t just because they remembered more. Even when memory was equal across groups, the retrieval group was still better at recognizing when a concept applied in a new situation.
In plain English: retrieving definitions doesn’t just strengthen memory — it trains the brain to see where that knowledge is relevant and apply it.
In even plainer English: quizzing yourself doesn’t just help you remember the right answer — it makes you more likely to notice when that idea shows up in real life, and to actually use it.
✅ So, Is the Study Cycle too “Basic”?
So when educators worry that the Study Cycle is only useful for “lower order thinking” or for “just memorization,” we can confidently say: that’s simply not true. Retrieval practice is higher order learning in action — and this study proves it.
Which brings us back to the original question from our Lab participant: Can the Study Cycle be applied to skills like critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving, or is it “just memorization?”
The answer is clear: when we teach retrieval as part of the Study Cycle, we’re not dumbing down learning — we’re giving students the practice that makes higher-order thinking possible. Quizzing, self-testing, flashcards, blurting… these aren’t “low-level” tricks. They’re scaffolds that build flexible, transferable knowledge students can use in real-world contexts.
But here’s the challenge: the science is crystal clear about what works — so why don’t students actually do it? That’s the real puzzle: how do we move students from knowing to doing? What teaching and coaching moves actually inspire them to study strategically instead of defaulting to the easy-but-ineffective habits they already know?
👉 That’s exactly what we specialize in at the Anti-Boring Learning Lab. We don’t just share the science; we help educators translate it into tools and conversations that students will actually use — especially in executive function coaching for students and academic coaching for neurodiverse learners.
If you want to see the Study Cycle in action, you can watch my free demo inside the Anti-Boring Learning Lab Visitor’s Center.
And if you’d like to go deeper, you have two upcoming opportunities this October:
Beyond Flashcards — Tuesday, October 21
Beyond Learning Styles — Saturday, October 25
In these masterclasses, we’ll take a deep dive into the science of both encoding and retrieval, and I’ll share 30+ student-tested strategies (aka study skills that stick) you can start using right away to help your students practice learning in ways that actually last.
Because if this research makes one thing clear, it’s that memorization and higher-order thinking aren’t enemies at all — they’re partners. And the Study Cycle shows students how to bring them together.
🎈Your Turn to Reflect
In the Anti-Boring Learning Lab, we believe it’s important to model the reflective learners we want our students to become. So before you click away, here’s a prompt to consider:
How do you currently talk about memorization with students?
Do you agree with the our reflections here, or do you have a different “take” on the relationship between retrieval and higher order thinking?
If you’d like to reflect “out loud,” post below — whether it’s a thought sparked by this question or another idea from this blog. I’d love to hear your take!