Group one showed the best recall, with their second attempt not much different than the first. Group two as expected showed better recall on the second questionnaire then on the first one and group three showed the worst recall on both of them.
Rationale
I have enjoyed learning about cognitive psychology and one of the things I have enjoyed the most is about memory and forgetting.
I thought it would be interesting to see if people do need the right cues to learn, and does this affect the way we remember things.
In this experiment I want to investigate whether cues help people to remember information like the research of Godden and Baddeley, and Tulving.
Aim
The aim of the investigation is to see if participants learn more words listening to music then in silence.
Hypothesis
Participants will learn words more easily when listening to music compared to participants who learn in silence.
Null Hypothesis
Any differences in the number of words learnt are due to chance factors.
Method and Design
An experiment was the easiest method to use because I am trying to establish cause and effect. I am also trying to control conditions and with a laboratory experiment it is easy to do this. I am using a repeated measures design because I need fewer participants and I can eliminate extraneous variables.
Variables
Independent Variable (IV): Whether or not music is played to the participants while learning and recalling.
Dependent Variable (DV): The amount of words recalled.
Participants
The participants were between the ages of 17-19 years old, full time students who study AS/A2 levels in a sixth form college. I used 20 participants. I used an opportunity sample as I just chose the participants who were available at the time.
I have designed a consent form for the participants to sign, to say that they take part in this experiment. They were able to withdraw and were debriefed.
Apparatus
- Two different word lists on Acetates to use on the Overhead Projector (OHP), fifteen pairs in each list
- CD Player
- CD
- Stopwatch, to time how long the participants gets to see each word pair.
- Instructions sheets
- Answer sheets
- Spare pens
- OHP, so that all the participants can see the words from where they are sitting.
The font of our writing was Times New Roman, as this is a standard font. The size was kept at 48 so that the writing could be clearly seen on the OHP. The instruction sheet was size 12. We are going to give each participant four seconds to view each word pair and four seconds to recall each word.
Procedure
- Each participant is handed out a consent form.
- They are then given an instruction sheet.
- The music is turned on and they are shown the first list of word pairs and given four seconds to look at each one. Only one word pair is shown at a time, the participants cannot see the word pairs above or below the one they are looking at.
- When they have been shown all of the word pairs, the music is stopped.
- They are then given a distracter task.
- After 45 seconds they are told to stop.
- They are then shown the pairs of words again, but the right hand side are missing. They still get shown one word at a time, until all words have been shown and they are asked to recall the other word.
- The same steps are followed for Condition B but with the music kept on. Another word list is used.
- Asked to recall with music on.
- A debriefing.
See Appendices
Controls
- All Participants were given a consent form.
- Were given instruction sheets.
- Were in the same room.
- Were shown the same word pairs.
- BPS guidelines were followed.
Results
Raw Data
Correct
Summary Table
Summary Table Commentary
In Condition A, participants were told to look at a list of words whilst listening to music, they were then asked to match the pairs with the music turned off. In Condition B the music was kept on whilst participants were matching the pairs.
The mean average for Condition A is 4.8 pairs whilst the mean average for Condition B is 4.15 pairs.
The median average for Condition A is 4.5 pairs compared to Condition B that is 3 pairs.
The modal average for Condition A is 4 pairs, whilst the modal average for Condition B is 2.
Additional Graphical Description of Results
Descriptive Statistics Commentary
The highest amount of words learnt in my line graph was 11 and the lowest was 0. The graph shows that people who got low recall in Condition A, also got low recall in Condition B. Only one participant got all eleven pairs matched correctly on both conditions. Almost none of the participants got any incorrect and this is shown on the graph.
There is one piece of extreme data on my line graph, where the participant matched all the pairs correctly in each condition.
There is also a lot of overlap between the two conditions and this shows that the outcome for each condition was very similar. The difference in each condition is difficult to explain.
Relationship of Results to Hypothesis
My results show that people did not learn more words with music on, in fact they learned less. Only one participant matched all eleven pairs in both conditions. The overall result shows that the music didn’t act as a cue as it did not aid learning or recall.
The results do not relate to my hypothesis, as I did not prove that music aids learning. Therefore I must accept my null hypothesis.
The averages for both conditions were 4.8 for Condition A and 4.15 for Condition B, this is very close and there is not a significant difference.
Discussion
Validity
In this experiment I manipulated whether or not music was played to the participants. A problem with the experiment is that it lacks in ecological validity. In real life people do not pair words, memory does not work in the same way as an experiment, we do not think in lists. This experiment is trying to look at something that is not true to life.
Suggestions for improved validity
Ways of improving validity could be to do a field experiment, do longitudinal studies or to keep a diary case. Participants could learn in a classroom what they have to learn and then sit the exams in the same classroom. This may help them to remember.
A case study would provide insight however you cannot generalize.
A field experiment is good as you can also get rid of demand characteristics but you cannot control extraneous variables and you cannot generalise.
Reliability
Experiments are generally reliable because it produces quantitative data and it can be replicated. You can generalise and you can also control extraneous variables.
When the experiment took place participants, copied off each other, they shouted the answers out and there was generally a lot of noise in the room. There were also more girls than boys. Participants didn’t want to ask questions about the task, so it is possible that they may not have fully understood what to do, they are responding to demand characteristics.
Opportunity sampling is also very limited and I was only allowed to experiment on English classrooms.
Improving Reliability
Having a special room to do the experiment in would help improve reliability. Also maybe getting the participants to take us more seriously would help.
Maybe not giving the participants as long to look at the words would also improve reliability or having a person in authority be present.
Implications
My background information like Tulving and Godden and Baddeley suggest that cues help recall. I used music as a cue in my experiment and that did not appear to help recall. The difference in the two conditions was very narrow. This may indicate that the experiment was wrong in some way.
Generalisation of Findings
The experiment was done on 20 17-19 year olds who are studying AS or A2 levels. You cannot generalise to the rest of the population as students are trained to remember as they have been in education since the age of 5.
You could therefore only generalise on 17-19 year olds in full time education. It did not tell us about age or gender.
A sample of 20 is far too small to generalise from, as 20 people cannot account for everyone in the rest of the population.
Application to everyday life
In many situations cues can be very helpful. Students use cues to help them to revise for exams and the examiner can use a stimulus to help the student to remember in exams. E.g. after revising for psychology, students could use Tulving’s ideas to create categories of information to make the work more manageable and easier to remember.
