The ethical issues that arise in this experiment are gaining consent from participants and giving the right to withdraw themselves from the experiment at any time they wish. This will be controlled by briefing participants before the experiment is conducted consisting of the standardised instructions, and debriefing (see appendix 1).
Participants
A particular age range of participants will be focussed on, and therefore the target population for this experiment is 16-18 year olds. A sampling method of opportunity sampling will be used to select the target population. This is because it is a simple way of gaining a number of participants also it is practically efficient given the demands of time. In total ten boys and ten girls will be selected from the sixth form I am currently studying at.
Materials
The materials which will be used for this experiment are List A containing the related words all mixed up and List B containing the unrelated words (see appendices 2a and 2b).
Other materials, which will be used to carry out this experiment are Instructions for the participants such as the brief, standardised instructions and the debrief (see appendix 1). Pens and response sheets will be used for participants to write down the words they remember. A stopwatch will also be used to time participants. Paper will be given to participants after the task so they can write down their views about the experiment.
Procedure
A participant is approached. The brief is read to the participant (see appendix 1). If the participant agrees to proceed, they will be taken to a quiet room were all the experiment will take place to avoid any other variable effecting the results. The standardised instructions will be read (see appendix 1). List A will then be given to participants and they will be told to start, and timed for one minute, they will then be given one minute to write as many words as they can recall on the response sheet. This procedure will be repeated for List B. When the participants have finished they will be debriefed. (see appendix 1)
A pilot study was carried out before embarking upon the main research. A pilot study is a small-scale preliminary study conducted before the main research in order to check the feasibility or to improve the design of the research. A pilot study was carried out for this experiment on 4 members of the relevant population, but not on those who will form part of the final sample because this might influence the later behaviour of research subjects if they have already been involved in the research. This will allow me to check whether the details given to the participants are easy to understand and that the design of the experiment is suitable.
By conducting a pilot study I found that participants felt that the list of words were too long which were originally thirty words per list. This was changed to twenty words per list for the actual experiment.
RESULTS
For all raw data and calculations see appendix 4
A table to show the statistics for list A (related words) and list B (unrelated words)
Looking at the table above you can see that both the mean and median show that the results support the experimental hypothesis, as the mean and median for list A are both higher than that of list B.
A frequency polygon to show the number of words recalled from list A (related words) and list B (unrelated words)
This graph shows that more words were recalled by participants in list A (related words), and therefore less words were recalled by participants in list B (unrelated words). This again supports the experimental hypothesis.
DISCUSSION
The results that have been collected from this experiment fully support the experimental hypothesis, as the mean value of words recalled in experiment A is 12.3, and the mean number of words recalled in experiment B is 7. Therefore the mean is 5.3 words higher in experiment A. Also the median for experiment A is 12 and for experiment B it is 7. Therefore the median is 5 words higher in experiment A. This suggests that categorical clustering is used as a means of organising retrieval.
This experiment was based upon Bousfields study that was discussed in the introduction. Looking at the completed response sheets you can clearly see that words were remembered by grouping related words together were possible which was in list A. (see appendix 5a,b and c for some examples). Therefore this experiment relates to Bousfield’s because his conclusion was that “category clusters are indicative of semantic organisation in memory”.
Participants were debriefed at the end of the experiment and asked what they thought to the experiment and the majority of participants stated that List A was easier to remember than List B because the words were related into groups and therefore making it easier to remember them.
There are some limitations within this experiment. Firstly, it was carried out in the library and participants may have been disturbed by other people that were in the library, which could have affected the concentration of the participant, which in return could have affected the results acquired. A problem associated with related design is the use of the same individual in two conditions, which creates the problem of order effects. In the experiment I presented the participants with the non-categorised words first followed by the categorised words second. It is possible that the participants recall of words for the second list improved with practice. If I were to conduct the study again I would mix up presenting the two different lists of words. A limitation of the sampling group could be volunteer characteristics because for this experiment the sample was taken from my sixth form which includes mainly people who are middle-class, white, and well educated it doesn’t include 16-18 year olds who are working-class and belong to ethnic minorities. I did try to include people from ethnic backgrounds but unfortunately this still means that my sample is not fully representative of the wider population. However the reason this sample was chosen is due to practical reasons and because it was more efficient for me to test this sample.
The ethical issues involved in this investigation were that the participants didn’t know exactly what the study was about and what was being researched. If they were told then the results would be unreliable because participants would know to categorise the words. For this reason participants were not told but were given a full brief and debrief where they were told the purpose of the experiment afterwards. Participants were also given the right to withdraw and they were told that all information would be kept confidential.
If I was to carry out the experiment again I feel it would be necessary to use a wider range of people of different ages, social classes, and ethnic backgrounds. This would make the experiment more representative of the population. In order to improve the study even more I would use a larger sample of participants, so that a greater number of results could be used to draw more accurate and precise conclusions. To extend this research even further I would investigate whether the number of words recalled differs between gender groups.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion to this experiment, the results have shown that more words were recalled from list A containing categorised words in contrast to list B that contained non-categorised, random words.
REFERENCES
- Roth 1 (1990) – Introduction to psychology-volume 2, Open University.
- Internet – www.s-cool.co.uk
- Library book – An introduction to psychology
Appendix 1
BRIEFING
Hi! My names Rehana, I’m currently studying AS Psychology at this school. It’s a subject all about how the mind works. At present I’m carrying out a simple psychology experiment which shouldn’t take too long. You have every right to withdraw at any time during the experiment. The purpose of the experiment will be explained immediately afterwards. Would you consent to taking part in the experiment?
STANDARDISED INSTRUCTIONS
You will be given a list of twenty words and you will have to remember as many of the words as you can in one minute. You will then be given a response sheet where you will write down the words you can recall, again you will be given one minute to do this. This will then be repeated for another list of words. Are there any questions you wish to ask? Are you ready to start? Remember you have the right to withdraw at any time if you don’t wish to carry on.
DE-BRIEFING
So what did you think to the task? Did you find any of the lists easier to remember than the other? The findings were not unexpected. In this experiment list A contained related words and list B contained unrelated words, all I was investigating is whether people tended to categorise the words to remember them. Do you have any questions about anything? Is it alright for me to keep your results, they will be kept confidential and your name will not be mentioned. Thanks a lot for taking part in my experiment.
Appendix 2a
LIST A
GREEN
DOG
PENCIL
EAR-RINGS
GIRAFFE
RED
NOSE-RING
RULER
NECKLACE
SHARPENER
BLUE
MOUSE
ELEPHANT
PEN
COMPASS
RING
BRACELET
YELLOW
CAT
ORANGE
Appendix 2b
List B
BOOK
TROUSER
FATHER
CARPET
TRAIN
EAR
CLOCK
CHAIR
HOLIDAY
GLASS
ROSE
PURSE
WIND
PEBBLES
KEY
BRICK
ALARM
TOMATOES
MOON
BAG
Appendix 3a
RESPONSE SHEET A
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Appendix 3b
RESPONSE SHEET B
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Appendix 4
TABLE OF RAW DATA
- A table to show the number of words recalled by the participants.
CALCULATIONS FOR LIST A
Mean =20+11+12+18+10+15+13+10+15+10+9+14+8+9+12+9+12+16+9+14 =12.3
20
Median = 8,9,9,9,9,10,10,10,11,12,12,12,13,14,14,15,15,16,18,20 =12
Range = 20-8 = 12
Standard deviation = ∑ (x-x)2
n-1
x = individual score of each participant
x = mean score of participants
n = number of participants
Standard deviation for list A
Mean = 12.3
∑ = 206.2 = 10.85
(n-1) 19
= ∫10.85 = 3.29
Standard deviation for list A = 3.29
CALCULATIONS FOR LIST B
Mean = 8+6+9+8+6+9+7+5+10+7+5+6+6+8+7+5+9+10+4+5 = 7
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Median = 4,5,5,5,5,6,6,6,6,7,7,7,8,8,8,9,9,9,10,10
Range = 10 – 4 = 6
Standard Deviation
∑ = 61 = 3.211
19
=√3.211 = 1.792
Standard Deviation for list B = 1.792
A table to show the frequency of results in both conditions
The frequency table above shows how many words were recalled by each of the participants.
