About Effective Learning — Who We Are and Why This Site Exists

Our Story

The Problem We Set Out to Solve

Effective Learning began as a frustration. The three researchers and educators behind this site had all spent years in the academic literature on memory, cognition, and skill acquisition — and had all been struck by the same uncomfortable fact: the findings from cognitive science laboratories were not reaching the people who needed them most.

The research on spaced repetition dates back to the 1880s. The testing effect — the finding that retrieving information dramatically outperforms re-reading it — was documented in the early 1900s and confirmed so repeatedly across the twentieth century that it is considered one of the most robust findings in educational psychology. Deliberate practice research emerged in the 1990s. Cognitive load theory in the 1980s.

And yet, at the same time, the most common study advice given to school and university students was to re-read their notes, highlight important passages, and try to "understand" the material before exams. Techniques that are actively ineffective by the standards of the research literature, presented as conventional wisdom by the institutions tasked with education.

The gap was not caused by ignorance at the research level — there was abundant, clear, well-replicated evidence. It was caused by a translation failure: the science was not reaching practitioners in a form they could immediately act on.

This site is our attempt at translation. Every piece of content here is grounded in peer-reviewed research, explained in plain language, and presented alongside concrete implementation guidance. We do not sell courses, supplements, or secrets. We organise and explain what the scientific literature has already established — and present it in a form you can act on today.

A collection of books on cognitive science and educational psychology

"The science of learning has been sitting in journals for a century. The hard part was never the research — it was the translation."

— The Effective Learning editorial team

Our Principles

What We Believe About Learning

Evidence Over Convention

Everything on this site is grounded in peer-reviewed research from cognitive psychology, educational science, and neuroscience. When the evidence conflicts with widely held beliefs about how learning works — as it often does — we follow the evidence, explain why, and provide references so you can verify it yourself.

We do not endorse techniques because they are popular, because they feel intuitive, or because they have been recommended by famous people. We endorse them because controlled experiments have shown that they produce better learning outcomes than the alternatives, replicated across multiple research groups and populations.

Honesty About Difficulty

Effective learning is not effortless. If it were, everyone would already be doing it. The techniques we describe are challenging, sometimes humbling, and require consistent effort. We do not pretend otherwise. What we do argue — based on the research — is that the difficulty is lower than the difficulty of spending twice as long with ineffective methods and achieving half the result.

We also believe that discomfort in learning is informative, not discouraging. When active recall feels hard, it is because it is working. When the Feynman technique reveals gaps, it is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. Reframing difficulty as signal rather than obstacle is itself one of the most useful shifts a learner can make.

No Paywalls, No Courses

The core ideas on this site — spaced repetition, active recall, the Feynman technique, interleaving, deliberate practice — are decades old and freely available in the academic literature. We have organised them, explained them, and made them immediately actionable. For that reason, everything on this site is and will remain free.

We do not have a paid course, a premium membership, or an email list. We do not accept advertising or affiliate revenue that could bias our recommendations. If a tool or method appears on this site, it is because we believe the evidence supports it — not because someone paid to be featured.

The Team

The People Behind the Research

Dr. Sarah Elliot

Cognitive Psychologist

Former postdoctoral researcher in memory and cognitive control at University College London. Now applies memory science in educational consulting, working with medical schools and professional training programmes to redesign curricula around evidence-based learning principles. Her research focus is the long-term retention of procedural knowledge.

Marcus Vane

Educational Researcher

Eight years as a secondary school teacher before completing a master's in educational psychology. Now researches the translation of laboratory learning science into practical classroom applications. His particular interest is in why evidence-based practices fail to reach classrooms — the gap between policy and practice in educational reform.

Priya Nair

Learning Systems Designer

Background in instructional design and spaced repetition system architecture. Has designed learning pathways for professional licensing examinations and corporate training programmes. Responsible for translating the academic literature on spaced repetition and interleaving into practical, scalable systems that non-specialists can implement.

Transparency & Sources

How We Approach Sources

Every factual claim on this site is drawn from published, peer-reviewed research in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, or educational science. We prioritise meta-analyses and systematic reviews where they exist, and we rely on replicated findings rather than single-study results.

Key researchers whose work informs this site include:

Henry Roediger III & Jeffrey Karpicke — testing effect and retrieval practice research
Robert Bjork — desirable difficulties and spaced practice
Anders Ericsson — deliberate practice and expert performance
John Sweller — cognitive load theory
Hermann Ebbinghaus — forgetting curve and spacing effect (foundational work)
Matthew Walker — sleep and memory consolidation
John Dunlosky — comparative effectiveness of study strategies (2013 meta-analysis)

We make a deliberate distinction between well-replicated findings (which we present with confidence) and emerging or single-study results (which we present with appropriate caveats). Learning science is an active field and our understanding of optimal learning conditions continues to evolve. Where findings are contested or where effect sizes are small, we say so.

If you spot an error, an unsupported claim, or outdated information on any page of this site, please contact us. We take accuracy seriously and update content when the evidence warrants it.

Key Reference

Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. This comprehensive meta-analysis of ten common study techniques remains the most thorough comparative evaluation in the field.

Why This Site Exists.