An experiment to investigation the effect of sorting words by their meaning and sorting words by their font style on the number of words correctly recalled.

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Name: Alicia Boulter               Candidate number: 4024                  Centre number: 36640

Title

An experiment to investigation the effect of sorting words by their meaning and sorting words by their font style on the number of words correctly recalled.

Contents                                 Page

Abstract                                        3

Introduction                                  3 - 4

Method                                          4 - 5

Design                                             4

Participants                                     4  

Materials and Apparatus                 4

Task                                                5

Procedure                                       5

Ethical Issues                                 5

Results                                           6

Summary of data                            6

Discussion                                     6 - 7

Conclusion                                     7

References                                     7

Appendices                                     7 - 11

Appendix 1                                        8

Appendix 2                                        9

Appendix 3                                       10  

Appendix 4                                       10

Appendix 5                                       11

Abstract

This investigation is based on Craik and Tulvig’s research (1975) into Craik and Lockhart’s (1972) “Levels of Processing” theory. They asked participants questions about either the meaning, sound of appearance of a list of 60 words and they found that participants correctly recognised more of the words in the ‘meaning’ condition than in the ‘sound’ or ‘appearance’ condition put together.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether words sorted by their meaning are better recalled, than the same words sorted by their appearance. The experimental hypothesis was “The participants who sort the words according to the meaning of the word will recall significantly more words than the participants who sort the words according to font style.”

The research method chosen was a field experiment using an independent groups design, where one group had to sort the words by their meaning and the other group had to sort the words by their font style. The target population was Y9 King Ecgbert School students in Sheffield, they were selected by opportunity sampling, and there were 10 participants in each group.

Participants who sorted the words according to the font-style correctly recalled a mean number of 1.9 words, whereas the participants who sorted the words according to their meaning correctly recalled a mean number of 8.2.

The experimental hypothesis was accepted and the researcher concluded that the amount of information correctly recalled can be increased if the level at which the information is processed is increased.

Introduction

When trying to learn a specific piece of information teachers always discourage students from copying the  information out of a textbook because it is possible for the student to read the text and write down  the information ‘word perfect’ and still not know what the text is about. Whereas, when a student reads the text and then writes it down in his/her own words they have to understand the information, and therefore, they are far more likely to remember it because they link it to information, which has been previously stored in their long-term memory and so are processing it at a deeper level. In psychology, this is known as the levels of processing.

However, it may be argued that the student who re-writes the information in the textbook simply spends longer looking at the information than the student who copies the information straight out of the book so this is why they remember more of the information.

In 1972, Craik and Lockhart formed the levels of processing theory. They insisted that the processing of information affects later recall of the information, and that a deeper level of processing leads to better recall of the information. Craik and Tulving (1975) tested the levels of processing theory by investigating the effects of different levels of processing on the recall of words. Craik and Tulving showed participants a list of 60 words, each of which they had to answer one of three questions about. The question was either about the case of the word (whether it was written in capitals or lower case-structure/appearance), a question the sound of the word (whether it rhymed with another word or not-phonetics), or a question about the meaning of the word (whether it fit into a sentence or not-semantics). Questions were given orally along with a visual image of the word then participants had to answer the question. Participants were then given a surprise recognition test, where they were shown a list of 180 words and had to identify as many of the 60 words they had been asked questions about, as possible. Craik and Tulving found that 17% of the words in the appearance condition (shallow processing) were correctly recognised, 37% of the words in the phonetics condition (mid-processing) and 65% of the words in the semantics condition (deep processing). This experiment was conducted to support Craik and Lockhart’s (1972) theory that the level of processing has a significant effect on how memorable the information is.

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This research is investigating the levels of processing. The aim of this experiment is to investigate whether words sorted by their meaning (semantics) are better recalled, than the same words sorted by their appearance (structure), when there is no specific instruction to learn the words (and participants are not previously told they will have to recall the words).

The experimental hypothesis to be tested is one-tailed based on the results of previous experiments:

“The participants who sort the words according to the meaning of the word (semantically) will recall significantly more words than the participants who sort the words according ...

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