By Hunter Hall
Learning and retaining information for many people within today’s school system is a struggle. Information can become skewed, easy to forget, mixed around and confused with other topics learned along with the information you’re trying to retain. There are many techniques or tips and tricks one can use to become more efficient in storing information in their mind and keeping it there. One of these techniques is interleaving. Interleaving is a technique used for retaining information at a higher rate in both short term and long term memory. The process of interleaving involves mixing around questions or terms from different topics while studying or learning new material. However, there is an argument against the effectiveness of interleaving. As Doug Rohrer, a professor of psychology at the University of South Florida, states in his article about interleaving, the argument is that some believe it can lead to an individual confusing certain information with one another (1). The example given was the words “illusion” and “allusion” (1). Despite this, research held on interleaving has shown that it does indeed improve recall.
Sun et al. (2022) looked at three artists, six paintings from each of the artists. They had students study the paintings using the blocking technique and the interleaving technique. The group who used the blocking technique looked at all six paintings from the first artist before moving on to the second artist and so on. The group who used the interleaving technique looked at one painting from the first artist, then moved down to the second, then moved to the third artist before repeating that process six times to study all six paintings from each artist. This study’s results held true to the statement that the interleaving technique yields a higher percentage of correct pairings in comparison to the blocking technique. Rohrer (2012) explains that the process of interleaving has a successful effect because the differences and similarities between each artist’s paintings become more clear. Looking at different artist’s paintings with the interleaving technique allows for the contrast between their styles to be more apparent. Due to this, it is easier to distinguish between each of the artist’s styles and techniques, and therefore remember them later on.
So what’re the other techniques you could use and why are they so insufficient by comparison to the interleaving technique? The main competitor to the interleaving technique is the blocking technique, mentioned above. The blocking technique is inferior to the interleaving technique because research has been shown that individuals who are shown repeated examples of certain information tend to struggle with being attentive towards said information. As put by Firth et al (2021), the mind has been shown to wander at a higher rate when the blocking technique is being used. The second technique used is the spacing technique. Some would argue that the interleaving effect utilizes the spacing effect because the spacing effect “spaces” out the time in which terms or topics are learned, in an attempt to improve memory retention. However, both of these techniques are insufficient in comparison to the interleaving technique.
Along with the aforementioned art example, there are a good number of other data points used to support the superiority of the interleaving effect. For example, when being used in mathematics, usage of the interleaving effect was shown to have improved scores by 63%(1). However, you’d rarely see the interleaving effect in a mathematics book because math as a concept is regularly taught in blocks rather than spread out and reviewed consistently. You would’ve noticed this in the review section of a textbook. According to Rohrer (2012), you normally see a set number of questions all reviewing what has just been taught rather than giving a review for what has currently been taught as well as mixing in some older topics. On another note, the interleaving effect isn’t constrained to school work. There has been a study on a group of baseball players to see if the interleaving effect can improve hitting skills. The way in which this study was conducted was by pitching 3 different styles of pitches: fastballs, curveballs, and change-ups. In total throwing 45 practice pitches in either a blocked format or an interleaved format. The results shown were that, on average, after practicing in an interleaved format, the players hit at an improved rate in comparison to the blocked effect (1).
In conclusion, while some would argue that spacing out the examples and study samples seem as if they would cause some loss of information or that this could lead to confusing similar topics, the interleaving technique is superior to its counterparts. The success of the interleaving effect has been shown in multiple fields, some not even in academia, as it can help improve recall and information retention. The blocking and spacing techniques are just inferior in comparison. The blocking effect causes an individual’s attention and mind to wander and the spacing effect can cause those who utilize it to forget the information if the length of time is too long. Proving that if you would like to improve memory retention and test results, utilize the interleaving effect.
References
(1) Rohrer, D. (2012). Interleaving Helps Students Distinguish among Similar Concepts. Educational Psychology Review, 24(3), 355–367. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-012-9201-3
(2) Zulkiply, N., & Burt, J. (2013). Inductive Learning: Does Interleaving Exemplars Affect Long-Term Retention? Malaysian Journal of Learning & Instruction. https://doi.org/10.32890/mjli.10.2013.7655
(3) Sun, Y., Shi, A., Zhao, W., Yang, Y., Li, B., Hu, X., Shanks, D. R., Yang, C., & Luo, L. (2022). Long-Lasting Effects of an Instructional Intervention on Interleaving Preference in Inductive Learning and Transfer. Educational Psychology Review, 34(3), 1679–1707. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-022-09666-5
(4) Firth, J., Rivers, I., & Boyle, J. (2021). A systematic review of interleaving as a concept learning strategy. Review of Education, 9(2), 642–684. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3266
(5) Carpenter, S. (2014). Spacing and Interleaving of Study and Practice. Applying Science and Learning in Education, 131–141. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=d0a0af3a1c25ac4548b9f4174e3255d6dd77d1b0#page=136