Explain it to yourself: how asking "why?" deepens understanding

Michelene Chi’s research on physics students (1989), what was gained when pupils were prompted to explain every line of a text, and where this technique stands compared with others

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Translated from the Albanian original by the editors. Shqip

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Illustration: a brain with connections, a symbol of understanding built by asking “why?”
Original illustration by the lexoshpejt editors. Not a historical photograph or object.
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At the end of the 1980s the psychologist Michelene Chi and her colleagues studied how physics students learned from worked examples in their textbook. They asked students to think aloud while they read. Then they compared those who solved new problems best with those who did worst.

What the good students did

The difference was not in how long they read, but in how they read. The successful students constantly explained to themselves: "Why is this formula used here?", "Where does this force come from?", "How does this relate to what I read before?". The weaker students read the example like a story and moved on, thinking they had understood it. The researchers called this difference the self-explanation effect.

Can it be learned?

The next question was whether this was just a trait of good students or something anyone can do. In 1994 Chi and colleagues gave secondary school pupils a text about the circulatory system. One group was prompted to explain to themselves after each line; the other simply read the text twice. The group that explained to themselves showed deeper understanding, especially on the harder questions that required linking information.

Understanding does not come from reading alone. It comes from the connections we build while we read.

How effective is it?

In 2013 the psychologist John Dunlosky and colleagues reviewed the evidence for ten study techniques. Self-explanation and "why?" questions were rated as having "moderate" utility: they work well, especially for understanding, but take time, and the evidence is more limited than for self-testing and spaced practice, which received the highest rating. Techniques such as highlighting and rereading were rated low.

How to do it

  1. After each paragraph or step, stop and say in your own words what it says and why it makes sense.
  2. Ask "why?" and "how?" about every important fact: "Why does this happen? How does it link with what I know?"
  3. Connect it with examples from life or with knowledge you already have.
  4. When you cannot explain it, you have found exactly the part you need to study more.
  5. Combine it with self-testing and spaced review for the best results.

Sources and further reading

  1. Chi, M. T. H., Bassok, M., Lewis, M. W., Reimann, P. & Glaser, R. (1989). Self-explanations: How students study and use examples in learning to solve problems. Cognitive Science, 13(2), 145–182. WorldCat
  2. Chi, M. T. H., de Leeuw, N., Chiu, M.-H. & LaVancher, C. (1994). Eliciting self-explanations improves understanding. Cognitive Science, 18(3), 439–477. WorldCat
  3. Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J. & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. PubMed

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