Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Learning by doing refers to learning practices that involvecompleting activities as opposed to explicit learning (e.g.,reading). Although the benefits of learning by doing have beendescribed before, it is still relatively uncommon in instructionalpractice. We investigated how much students employ learningby doing in online courses, and whether it is associated withimproved learning outcomes. Spending more time completingactivities had a larger impact on learning outcomes thanspending more time reading, even in the case of mostlydeclarative content, such as in a Psychology course. Moreover,learning by doing is more efficient: grade improvements of 1standard-deviation require 10-20% less time in learning bydoing than reading. Finally, we contrast this evidence withstudents’ a priori intuitions on best study strategies for theironline course. Students overestimate the value of explicitlearning through reading, and underestimate the value of activelearning.