We used a laboratory preparation to evaluate the claim that equivalence‐based instruction (EBI) is an efficient form of instruction due to eliminating the need for emergent relations to be taught. Three groups of college students received training to establish 3 stimulus classes with 4 members in each class. Two groups received either a linear series (EBI‐LS) or a 1‐to‐many training structure (EBI‐OTM group). A control group received complete instruction (CI) that targeted all possible relations between the members of each class. The EBI‐OTM group required fewer trials to complete instruction compared to CI, whereas EBI‐LS did not. The EBI‐OTM and the CI groups performed equally well on a posttest that followed initial attainment of the mastery criterion, whereas the EBI‐LS group performed more poorly than the other 2. The groups' performance on a function transfer test did not differ. The results support the claim that compared to CI, EBI is an efficient form of instruction when it follows an OTM structure. However, they also suggest this efficiency advantage cannot be attributed to the fewer relations that need to be taught in EBI, as the EBI‐OTM and the EBI‐LS groups were trained on the same number of relations.