Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, Vol 12(2), Jun 2026, 217-227; doi:10.1037/stl0000425
With the dramatic rise in online courses, studying and restudying from on-screen text and video have become increasingly prevalent. In this experiment, we examined the influence of restudying modality by assigning participants to one of four conditions: (a) reading and rereading a text (n = 98), (b) watching and rewatching a video (n = 86), (c) reading a text and then watching a video (n = 99), or (d) watching a video and then reading a text (n = 102). In each condition, the content was identical on the two occasions. Restudy was followed by a multiple-choice test of the material. Performance on this test was best when both study and restudy involved reading the text (p ps > .50). Based on this experiment, the greater attention and more active processing required for reading online text than for watching online video appears to be beneficial for learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)