Study group vs studying alone: which works for which part

If you're weighing a study group vs studying alone, here's the short answer: you don't have to pick one. Some parts of studying go better alone (reading the material, understanding it for the first time, reviewing from memory) and some go better with other people (explaining out loud, answering questions you didn't see coming, checking a problem set or a case). The most common mistake is doing them the wrong way round: reading together and practicing alone.

A group that meets to read through the notes is slower than any of its members on their own. A group that meets after everyone has done the reading, to explain things to each other and quiz each other, gets far more done than the same person alone with their notes. The difference isn't how many of you there are. It's what you meet for.

What follows is how to split a week of studying between the two, using one course as the example (Macroeconomics, with aggregate supply and demand and fiscal and monetary policy), and how to run a study group that doesn't turn into a two hour chat.

What to do alone

Some tasks get slower in a group without getting any better:

• Reading the material the first time. Everyone reads at their own pace. In a group, someone is always faster and someone slower, and both lose.
• Working through the hard parts. Wrestling with a slide that doesn't make sense (why a rate hike lowers investment, what shifts the aggregate demand curve) takes quiet and your own time. If it still doesn't click after you've tried, that's when you bring it to the group.
• Reviewing from memory. Covering the material and saying what you remember is something each brain has to do for itself. When someone else does it, you're just listening. How to do it without rereading everything is in how to review for an exam without rereading.
• Real focus. If you get distracted easily, a group is one more source of distraction. For solo sessions, studying without your phone makes more of a difference than any method.

First-time understanding is better done on your own. The group doesn't replace that first contact with the material; it builds on it afterwards.

What to do in a group

The group is for what you can't do well alone:

• Explaining out loud. When you explain the effect of expansionary monetary policy to someone, you notice right away where your reasoning breaks. There's evidence that learning something while expecting to teach it improves how much you recall and how well you organize it. It's what the Feynman technique suggests, with a real audience.
• Answering questions you didn't expect. Alone, you ask yourself what you already know. A classmate asks "what if the economy is already at full employment?", which is exactly the kind of thing your professor might ask.
• Checking problem sets and cases. Comparing how each of you solved the same case turns up mistakes nobody sees on their own page.
• Rehearsing an oral exam or a presentation. Saying the whole thing, on a timer, with someone interrupting you, is nearly impossible alone. There's more in how to prepare for an oral exam.

There's broader support too: a meta-analysis of small-group learning among undergraduates in science and math courses found better achievement and persistence than with traditional instruction alone. It doesn't say groups always win, just that working with others, set up well, adds something.

How to split a week between the two

With Macroeconomics as the example and a midterm two weeks out, a week could look like this:

1. Monday and Tuesday, alone. Everyone studies that week's lectures: reads the slides, works through the graphs, writes down what doesn't make sense.
2. Wednesday, alone. A short review from memory, to separate what you know from what you don't.
3. Thursday, as a group, ninety minutes. Everyone brings two things: a topic to explain and a question. You explain the topics, answer the questions together, and whatever nobody knows goes on a list for office hours.
4. Friday, alone. A problem set or a past exam, no help.
5. The following week, as a group. Grade that past exam together and write questions for each other.

Alone first, then together, then alone again. That last step matters: you take the exam alone, so the last thing before it should be answering without anyone feeding you the answer. If you want to fit these weeks into the whole semester without your exams piling up, that's in how to plan your semester.

How to run a study group that works

A group that works has rules, even if there aren't many:

• Three to five people. With two, if one shows up unprepared, there's no group. With seven, half of you listen and never talk.
• Everyone shows up having done the reading. This is the rule most groups break. If someone comes unprepared, that day they explain less and ask more, but nobody reads the notes to them.
• One goal per session. "Review Macro" isn't a goal. "Explain the IS-LM model to each other and do problems 3 to 6" is.
• Ninety minutes, with a fixed end. Past that, the conversation drifts anywhere.
• Phones off the table. One person checking theirs gets everyone checking theirs.

It works online too, on a video call with cameras on. What changes is that attention is harder to hold, so keep it shorter and come better prepared.

Share the material before you meet

What wastes the most group time is starting without everyone on the same material. One person has the new slides, another has last year's, another has a summary they found somewhere.

Before you meet, put everything in one place: the slides your professor posted, notes from whoever went to the lecture and the list of topics on the exam. If you split up topics, everyone shares what they prepared the day before, not during the session. In Filmina, a web app that explains your lecture slides out loud, a presentation, a summary or a mind map can be shared with a link anyone can open, no account needed; it's a way for the group to show up with the same thing. Any shared folder does the job too: what matters is that it exists.

When studying alone is better, and when it isn't

Sometimes it's better to skip the group:

• When you're far behind. If you haven't studied the last three lectures, the group won't help much: you'll be hearing explanations of things you've never seen. Catch up on your own first.
• When the group has turned social. If the last three sessions were more chat than study, nobody's to blame, but it's not a study group anymore. Meet only to explain, or meet less.
• When you're short on time. If you work while you study, a fixed weekly group may not fit. A couple of classmates you trade notes and questions with over text gets you close; more on that in how to work and study at the same time.

And the other way round: if you always study alone and do fine on written exams but badly on orals, or struggle to apply theory to cases, you're probably missing the explaining and being questioned part. If you've never said it out loud, you don't know yet whether you know it.

Frequently asked questions

Is it better to study in a group or alone?

It depends on the part of studying. Reading and understanding the material for the first time works better alone; explaining, answering questions and checking problems works better in a group. Combining both works best.

How many people should be in a study group?

Three to five. With fewer, the group falls apart if someone comes unprepared; with more, half the people listen without taking part.

How do you make a study group productive?

Everyone shows up having done the reading, every session has a concrete goal and a fixed end, and the time goes to explaining and asking questions, not reading the material together.

Do study groups help with oral exams?

Yes, it's one of the things they help with most. Explaining out loud to someone who interrupts and questions you is the closest thing to an oral exam you can practice beforehand.