Using and Exemplification exercise to teach psychological disorders

In 2007 at the Pennsylvania State University, college students in Intro Psychology were given pretests on matching psychological disorders with their definitions. Another group had to match psycological disorders with examples of the disorders.
After twelve weeks, one group of the students listened to lectures on the disorders. The other group sat through lectures and also wrote an example of each disorder.
In the post-tests the students who listened to the lecture and did the exercises did better than the students who just went to the lectures.
This study makes a person wonder if hands-on studying makes a differnce in learning, rather than just listening. And , will this also work in other classes with different topics than just psychology.