Dry electroencephalography (EEG) offers a practical means of measuring rapid neural dynamics in educational research without conductive gels or pastes, but procedural convenience should not be equated with superior signal quality or direct access to cognitive states. This integrative narrative review examines measurement characteristics, methodological rigor, and educational applications of dry EEG and includes an empirical pilot study with 10 adults. Comparative evidence indicates that dry EEG can reduce preparation and cleanup demands, whereas signal quality varies with electrode–skin contact, movement, participant characteristics, device architecture, and recording context. Methodological rigor depends on matching the research question and target EEG feature with the task, participants, recording system, quality-control procedures, preprocessing, and level of inference. Educational applications include attention, engagement, cognitive load, neurofeedback, and social interaction, with dry EEG used to track time-varying EEG features, compare learning conditions, and support repeated or multi-person recording. In the pilot, exploratory paired comparisons showed higher relative gamma-band power for infographic-based than text-based materials at Fp1, Fp2, Pz, and O1; these differences were interpreted as scalp-level condition effects. Dry EEG is most informative when selected for a clear measurement purpose, device-specific limitations are reported transparently, and neural findings are interpreted alongside behavioral, performance, and self-report evidence.