Can Mixing Topics on Practice Tests Improve Learning in Introductory Psychology?

What is it about?

Researchers have found that the way practice questions are ordered can affect how well people learn. In many laboratory studies, students learn more when different types of questions are mixed together (i.e., interleaving) rather than practicing one topic at a time, known as blocking. Mixing topics is thought to help students notice important differences between ideas and remember them better. However, most of this evidence comes from controlled lab settings or from STEM subjects, where problems often involve similar procedures or rules. The current study asked whether interleaving would also help students in an introductory psychology course, where students must both connect ideas across units and distinguish subtle differences within topics. To find out, students in an introductory psychology class completed online practice tests before their exams. Some students received questions that were interleaved across topics, while others received questions grouped by topic. The study found no learning advantage for interleaving in this introductory psychology course. Students who practiced with mixed topics did not perform better on their exams than those who practiced one topic at a time. What did make a difference was completing practice tests at all: students who used the practice tests, regardless of format, earned higher exam scores than those who did not. Similarly, student performed better on semesters where practice tests were offered vs. semesters where they were not offered. These results suggest that while interleaving can be powerful in some situations, its benefits may not automatically carry over to every type of course. In subjects like introductory psychology, simply testing yourself before an exam may be more important than how the questions are arranged.

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Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This study is important because it tests a well-known learning technique (i.e., interleaving) in a course that an estimated 1.2 to 1.6 million undergraduate students take each year. These results remind us that learning strategies are not “one size fits all.” What helps students in one type of class may not work the same way in another. By identifying when certain strategies do or do not help, this study gives teachers and students clearer guidance about how to learn effectively in real college courses.

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