A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) method includes defining a plurality of sub-volumes so that each of the sub-volumes includes a plurality of sequential slices of a plurality of slices that make up a volume of a subject, wherein the sub-volumes are divided into a plurality of groups so that any neighboring sub-volumes belong to different groups; applying radio-frequency (RF) pulses including a plurality of frequency components and a selection gradient to the subject to simultaneously excite a plurality of sub-volumes in each of the groups; performing three-dimensional (3D) encoding on each of the excited sub-volumes so that only some slices of the plurality of slices in each of the excited sub-volumes are encoded in a slice direction; acquiring magnetic resonance signals from the encoded sub-volumes; and reconstructing the acquired magnetic resonance signals into image data corresponding to each of the plurality of slices in each of the encoded sub-volumes.