Why Students Don’t Use the Study Strategies They Know (and How EF Closes the Gap)
We all have things we know we should do. Drink more water. Get eight hours of sleep. Take breaks from our screens. Go to bed at a reasonable hour instead of scrolling Instagram at 11:47 p.m.
But knowing what's best doesn't always translate into doing what's best — and that's just as true for study habits as it is for the rest of our daily choices.
Rather than dog on students, let me use myself as an example. On Duolingo, where I practice Spanish, I know that retrieval practice is one of the most effective ways to strengthen long-term learning. In case you don't know, retrieval practice is the act of pulling information out of memory to see whether you can actually remember it. It's quite literally my job to know about retrieval practice.
And yet Duolingo makes it ridiculously easy to tap the hint button. On a low-energy day, I often do. I know the hint isn't helping me retrieve the word. I know that struggling to remember it would actually strengthen my learning. I know all of this — and still, I tap.
That's me: a learning expert with decades of practice using an adult brain (well, a perimenopausal adult brain, which some days feels suspiciously like teenage brain fog). If I can know all of this and still find myself tapping the hint button anyway, what does it look like for students who are just learning how to learn?
As we start a new school year, I find myself especially curious about what happens in the gulf between knowing what works and actually doing it — because that space turns out to be surprisingly complicated.
It's not just one problem
When researchers look at how students learn and study on their own, they aren't studying one single problem. They're looking at different pieces of a much bigger process: knowing what works, deciding to use it, and actually carrying it out.
Taken together, the research suggests there are several places where effective learning can go off the rails:
A student might not know which strategy works.
A student might know it, but not actually use it.
Even when a student understands a strategy and wants to use it, the executive functions required to carry it out can create another layer of difficulty.
Those are different problems, and if we treat all of them as "the student doesn't know how to study," we're likely to offer the wrong kind of help.
First: does the student even know what works?
Let's start with the most obvious possibility: maybe the student really doesn't know that rereading and highlighting aren't the most effective ways to learn. That's more common than you might think.
In an open-ended survey of 177 college students, only 11% spontaneously reported using retrieval practice when studying on their own, despite decades of research showing that retrieval strengthens long-term learning. The overwhelming majority reported relying on rereading instead (Karpicke, Butler, & Roediger, 2009).
And students aren't the only ones who can hold inaccurate ideas about studying. Morehead, Rhodes, and DeLozier (2016) examined both instructor and student knowledge of study strategies and found that students and instructors sometimes held beliefs about studying that didn't line up with what learning research suggests.
So yes — sometimes the first thing a student needs is better information. They need to know that self-testing isn't just a way to check whether they learned something; it can actually cause learning. They need to know why spacing works, and why rereading can create that wonderfully convincing feeling of "oh yeah, I know this" without necessarily creating durable learning.
That's important. But then we run into a much more interesting problem.
Sometimes they know — and still don't do it
Sometimes the student does know. They've heard the mini-lecture. They've practiced the strategy with you. They can tell you exactly why retrieval practice works. And then, when it's time to study independently, they don't use it.
Hartwig and Dunlosky (2012) surveyed 324 college students about the study strategies they used and found that rereading notes or textbooks was by far the most common approach, with 83.6% of students reporting it. Students did report using self-testing too, which is part of what makes this so interesting — effective strategies may be in a student's repertoire without becoming their reliable, go-to way of studying.
Geller and colleagues (2018) found a related pattern: higher-performing students were more likely to endorse self-testing, less likely to cram, and more likely to plan their studying in advance than lower-performing students. These findings are correlational, so they don't tell us that any one strategy caused better achievement. But they do suggest that what matters isn't simply whether students have heard of effective strategies — it's what they actually do when the moment to study arrives.
Which brings us back to my Duolingo hint button. I don't have a knowledge problem. I know what retrieval practice is, I know why it's effective, and I even know, in the moment, that tapping "hint" is the less useful choice. And yet sometimes I tap it anyway. So what's going on?
Study strategies are actions, not just knowledge
The thing about study strategies is that they're not actually just study strategies — they're actions, and actions require executive function.
To self-test, a student has to:
Initiate the task of retrieval
Hold the goal of learning in mind
Inhibit the tempting urge to simply look at the answer
Tolerate the discomfort of not knowing
Plan when and where they'll practice
Sustain their attention long enough to do it
That's a lot of machinery underneath something that looks, on the surface, like "just quiz yourself."
When executive function itself is the harder lift
This matters particularly for students whose executive functions create additional challenges. Executive-function difficulties involving planning, organization, working memory, initiation, and inhibition are associated with academic functioning and homework problems in youth with ADHD (Langberg, Dvorsky, & Evans, 2013).
And here's the part I find especially interesting: in one study, adults with ADHD were about as accurate as controls at predicting their own memory performance, yet they differed in aspects of self-regulated learning, including their use of self-testing (Knouse, Anastopoulos, & Dunlosky, 2012).
In other words, the problem isn't necessarily "they don't understand how learning works." A student can understand an effective study strategy and still have trouble turning that knowledge into action. That distinction matters enormously for coaching. If a student doesn't know that retrieval practice works, teaching it is necessary. But if a student already knows it works and still can't get themselves to use it, explaining retrieval practice one more time may not solve the problem.
The student may need:
A smaller launch step
An external cue
A timer
A study structure that makes self-testing easier to begin
More supported practice before being expected to do it independently
Some accountability
Not because they don't care, or they're lazy, or they're resistant to learning — because the strategy needs to become reachable.
And this is where the research on the Knowing-Doing Gap suddenly becomes useful.
There's a name for this: the Knowing-Doing Gap
Organizational scholars Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton gave a name to the disconnect between knowing what works and actually putting that knowledge into action: the Knowing-Doing Gap.
They were writing about organizations, not students, but the concept is remarkably recognizable. A company can know what it should do and still fail to do it. An adult can know that eight hours of sleep would probably be a good idea and still be watching TikTok at midnight. I can know that retrieval practice works and still tap the Duolingo hint button. And a student can know that self-testing is more effective than rereading and still find themselves highlighting the textbook.
The point isn't that students are miniature corporations. It's that knowing something and being able to act on that knowledge are different skills. And once we see that, the question we ask about a struggling student can change. Instead of "why won't this student use the strategy I taught them," we can ask: what part of doing this strategy is currently hard? That's a much more useful question — and a much kinder one.
Why study skills and executive function are the same coaching problem
In the Lab, we're obsessed with teaching students the science of how learning works. Students deserve to know why retrieval beats rereading, why spacing matters, and why their brains can sometimes give them a misleading feeling of familiarity. That knowledge gives them a map. But a map isn't the same thing as making the journey. A student can understand the science of learning and still need help turning that knowledge into action.
That's why I don't think of executive function as a separate topic that sits next to study skills. Executive function is part of the machinery that makes study skills usable — which is exactly what last week's post was about: the difference between the core capacities a brain runs on and the applied skills built on top of them. A study strategy is one of those applied skills. Whether a student can actually carry it out depends on the same core capacities we mapped last week.
What this can look like in an actual session
Once we start seeing study skills this way, a student's behavior can look completely different:
The student who keeps rereading may not need another lecture about active learning — they might need help starting.
The student who knows they should study before the night before the test may not need another lesson on time management — they might need help turning that intention into a plan they can actually follow.
The student who understands retrieval practice but always looks at the answer may not need more evidence that self-testing works — they might need support tolerating the uncomfortable "I don't know this yet" moment.
That's the shift I'm interested in: not teaching students more and more strategies, but helping them figure out what gets in the way of using the strategies they already have. That's a very different kind of coaching.
Ready to close the gap in your own coaching?
That's exactly what I'll be teaching on August 22 in a free webinar: The EFs That Make (or Break) Study Skills. I'll walk through the full framework and show you how core executive functions drive study success — so you can stop guessing at which level a student is stuck and start targeting your support at the level they actually need.
Frequently asked questions
Q: What is the "Knowing-Doing Gap" in studying?
A: It's the disconnect between knowing which study strategies are effective — like self-testing and spacing — and actually using those strategies when studying independently. The term comes from organizational scholars Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, who studied why organizations can fail to act on what they know.
Q: How does executive function affect study skills?
A: Effective study strategies require action: initiating the task, planning when and how to do it, sustaining attention, inhibiting easier but less effective choices, and tolerating the discomfort of not knowing something yet. When a student's executive functions are taxed or still developing, active strategies may be harder to initiate and sustain — even when the student knows they work.
Q: Does the Knowing-Doing Gap affect students with ADHD differently?
A: Some students with ADHD may understand effective study techniques well and still struggle to initiate, organize, or sustain them. Awareness and use are not the same skill. Active strategies may be harder to access when a student also needs support with working memory, planning, inhibition, task initiation, or the structure around the task.
Q: How can educators help students close the Knowing-Doing Gap?
A: Start by figuring out where the breakdown is. If the student doesn't understand the strategy, teach it. If they understand it but struggle to use it, look at the executive functions and conditions required to carry it out. Then provide targeted scaffolding — such as modeling, smaller launch steps, external cues, structured practice, or accountability — rather than simply repeating the strategy lesson.
Your turn
When you work with students, where do you see the biggest breakdown happening? Is it getting them to understand why passive studying doesn't work, or helping them build the EF support they need to actually use the strategy once they understand it?
Drop your thoughts below — I read and reply to every single one.
Citations
Geller, J., Toftness, A. R., Armstrong, P. I., Carpenter, S. K., Manz, C. L., Coffman, C. R., & Lamm, M. H. (2018). Study strategies and beliefs about learning as a function of academic achievement and achievement goals. Memory, 26(5), 683–690. Link
Hartwig, M. K., & Dunlosky, J. (2012). Study strategies of college students: Are self-testing and scheduling related to achievement? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19(1), 126–134. Link
Karpicke, J. D., Butler, A. C., & Roediger, H. L., III. (2009). Metacognitive strategies in student learning: Do students practise retrieval when they study on their own? Memory, 17(4), 471–479. Link
Knouse, L. E., Anastopoulos, A. D., & Dunlosky, J. (2012). Isolating metamemory deficits in the self-regulated learning of adults with ADHD. Journal of Attention Disorders, 16(8), 650–660. Link
Langberg, J. M., Dvorsky, M. R., & Evans, S. W. (2013). What specific facets of executive function are associated with academic functioning in youth with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder? Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 41(7), 1145–1159. Link
Morehead, K., Rhodes, M. G., & DeLozier, S. (2016). Instructor and student knowledge of study strategies. Memory, 24(2), 257–271. Link
Pfeffer, J., & Sutton, R. I. (2000). The knowing-doing gap: How smart companies turn knowledge into action. Harvard Business School Press. Link
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