Ouhao Chen, Endah Retnowati, Juan Cristobal Castro-Alonso, Fred Paas, John Sweller
The interleaving effect indicates that students learn better from multiple areas that are interleaved rather than blocked. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that the effect is because interleaving facilitates comparisons between areas and is a variation of the variability effect that increases intrinsic cognitive load. Experiment 1 used an interleaved design with two obviously different topics and found no interleaving effect. Experiment 2 used a similar design but used topics that were more difficult to discriminate between, resulting in a clear advantage for the interleaved group associated with an increase in cognitive load. These results support the hypothesis that the interleaving and variability effects are closely related. © 2023 by the authors.
Department of Mathematics Education, Loughborough University, Loughborough, LE11 3TU, United Kingdom; Department of Mathematics Education, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta, 55281, Indonesia; School of Education, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, United Kingdom; Department of Psychology, Education and Child Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, 3062 PA, Netherlands; School of Education, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052, NSW, Australia
