The Feynman technique for studying, the steps and what research says

The technique is named after Richard Feynman, the physicist and 1965 Nobel laureate known for his clear explanations. The four step version that circulates today is a later packaging of the way he worked. Step one, pick a precise topic, such as mitosis or the Krebs cycle. Step two, explain it out loud or in writing, as if to someone new to the subject.

Step three, spot the places where you get stuck, where you use a word from the course without being able to define it, or where you skip a step. Go back to the material only for those points. Step four, explain it again in simpler terms, with an example or a comparison. The central move is to close your notes before explaining. That is what turns the technique into a memory exercise rather than reading aloud.

In 2002, Rozenblit and Keil described the illusion of explanatory depth. People feel they understand a complex phenomenon with far more precision and coherence than they really do. Across twelve studies, this illusion was much stronger for explanations than for facts, procedures or stories (Rozenblit and Keil, 2002).

This is exactly what happens before finals. You reread the chapter on blood sugar regulation, everything seems clear, and only when you try to explain it do you find a hole in the middle of the reasoning. The Feynman technique triggers that moment on purpose, at home, rather than in front of the exam paper. Each sticking point becomes a question to work on, which you can write on a card as in How to make flashcards that actually work.

No study tests the technique under Feynman’s name, but self-explanation has been measured. Chi and colleagues asked 14 eighth graders to explain each line of a text on the circulatory system to themselves, while 10 others read it twice. The self-explaining group gained more from the pretest to the posttest, and the students who produced many explanations all reached the correct model of the circulatory system (Chi et al., 1994).

Dunlosky and colleagues rank self-explanation among the techniques of moderate utility, and practice testing among those of high utility (Dunlosky et al., 2013). Koh and colleagues add that the benefit of teaching comes mostly from retrieval, when you explain without your notes (Koh et al., 2018). The Feynman technique combines both, explaining and pulling from memory, as long as your notes stay closed.

Take a blank page and a single topic. For five minutes, write or say everything you know, without your notes. Then open your notes and circle what was missing or wrong. Turn each gap into a short question. Explain it again the next day, then a few days later, so you also get the benefit of the spacing described in Spaced repetition, how long to wait between two reviews.

Explaining to a real person helps even more. Fiorella and Mayer found that actually teaching, in front of a camera, gave a longer lasting benefit than only preparing to teach (Fiorella and Mayer, 2013). A classmate, a parent or even a character will do, as long as they make you finish your sentences. The page Does learning by teaching work? What research says about the protégé effect covers those studies.