Background: Academic learning in higher education requires diverse activities such as reading, reviewing, and discussion. However, there are relatively few studies on the effect of the combination of these activities on learning outcomes. In this study, we investigated the combination of self-study and discussions at a selective Korean university. Methods: The present study compared the two-part instructional sequence of three groups: watching a video lecture (LD) and self-study (SD) groups, both followed by student-led discussions, and reviewing after watching a video lecture (LR) group. We compared test results using verbatim, paraphrased, and transfer items. We also carried out in-depth analyses of dialogs in the discussions. Findings: In three separate experiments, we found that the discussion groups scored significantly higher than the review group. Moreover, the SD group performed better than the LD group of the two discussion groups. Analyses of dialogue suggest that self-study elicited more active and productive content from the students than lectures, leading to superior performance. Contribution: Our results indicate that self-study can significantly enhance the learning effect of discussions.