Evidence on working memory capacity as a moderator of the interleaving effect is mixed, but WM does not appear to be a major barrier to classroom use¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · quant-synthesisr?·q2
Currency · newest study 2021 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? Sana et al. (2017) found the interleaving benefit disappeared for the highest-WM undergraduates, while Guzman-Munoz (2017) found a pooled marginal correlation suggesting high-WM learners benefit more. → Jonathan Firth 2021
Evidence¶
Jonathan Firth 2021¶
Jonathan Firth, Ian Rivers and James Boyle. (2021). A systematic review of interleaving as a concept learning strategy. Review of Education. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3266
q2 · i? · quant-synthesis · r?
Narrative synthesis of working memory span studies. Sana et al. (2017) found the benefit disappeared for highest-WM learners; Guzman-Munoz (2017) found the opposite marginal correlation when pooling three experiments. Birnbaum (2013, experiment 3) found the advantage persists under incidental learning.
"In their test of statistical problem solving, Sana et al., (2017) found an interaction such that the benefit of interleaving disappeared for learners (undergraduates) with the highest WM scores."
Discussion¶
Learner Variables¶
- Working Memory — moderator: an instructional effect differs with it
Related Claims¶
- Interleaving Improves Discrimination — related
- Interleaving category examples improves inductive category learning for visual and mathematical materials, but not for expository texts or word categories — related
- Studies disagree on whether low or high working memory learners benefit more from retrieval practice, and several find no relationship — related
- Working memory capacity is a robust indicator of success or failure in language learning — related
- Working memory capacity moderated disfluency effects in one study but not another — related
- Interleaving benefits low-skilled students more than high-skilled students when learning math problem categories — related
- Interleaved practice outperformed blocked practice across eight STEM classrooms — related
- Only low-working-memory-capacity students benefited from making pointing gestures when explaining number equations (review attributes this to Marstaller & Burianová, 2013) — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
working-memory-mixed-moderator-interleaving |
title |
Evidence on working memory capacity as a moderator of the interleaving effect is mixed, but WM does not appear to be a major barrier to classroom use |
description |
Evidence on working memory capacity as a moderator of the interleaving effect is mixed, but WM does not appear to be a major barrier to classroom use |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
mixed |
newest_evidence |
2021 |
source_checked |
2026-10-20 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-13 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — jonathan-firth-2021 |
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