Abstract
Children and Meta Memory a kitset experiment: Free recall and strategy usage in three
Age groups of children aged five to fourteen is an experiment that sets out to show if “general development frame work of strategy usage” (Cox and Waters. P. 33, 1986) theory will apply to younger children in particular 5- 7-year-old children. In doing so 2 boys were tasted and added into a set of results that were provided in the kitset. The results in the experiment were analyzed with the Tukey Honestly significant difference scale and it was viewed in a 3x3 ANOVA. The tests will attempt to show that children below the age of 7 can also use recall strategies if they are presented to promote that happening. To control for this three categories of hard easy and easy instructed were used.
The present study is an attempt to test the extent the “general development frame work of strategy usage” (Cox and Waters. P. 33, 1986) theory will apply to younger children in particular 5- 7-year-old children. Two boys were tested and the results were added to the experiment kit data provided to the experimenter. The results were calculated and analyzed by a 3 x 3 ANOVA and using the tukey HSD calculation. Flavel (1985) has outlined some of the general framework associated to free recall memory tasks e.g. Rehersal strategy. A more critical insight into the theoretical framework can be seen in two similar experiments. The work of Kobasigawa and Middleton (1972), and the work of Cox and Waters 1986 are used as a critical insight into the present study.
Flavel (1985) has outlined the common strategies used I information processing. They include rehearsal, clustering, elaboration, and systematic searching (Flavel 195). Rehearsal I when ideas are internally or externally expressed in a repetitive fashion so as to encode them into memory (Flavel 1985). Clustering is when items are put into categories (Flavel 1985), for example in this experiment a subject may cluster types of foods such s fruits and vegetables in order to created mental cues to recall the items. Flavel would say that experience in a certain subject such as cooking for example could increase the probability of a person using the clustering techniques (Flavel 1985). Weiten (1995 has stated that this kind of memorization is a conceptual hierarchy i.e. A multi level classification system based on common properties among items. Elaboration is where a common meaning is created in two or more items, which need to be recalled (Flavel 1985). In the present experiment a subject may try to elaborate by taking the animal pictures and creating an elaboration as follows, the animals had a party and they dressed up in sweatshirts, ties hats trousers and sock and shoes etc. In essence elaboration is a systematic network i.e. it would consist of nodes representing concepts, joined together by pathways that link related concepts (Weiten 1995). Testing these concepts has had its difficulties.
Cox and Waters (1986) conducted a free recall experiment based on
the usage of the “general development framework of strategy usage” (Cox and
Waters p 33, 1986). In brief the frame work consists of three basic assumptions
“the memory strategy will first appear under more favorable processing
conditions” (Cox and Waters, p. 23, 1986), material which encourage strategy
use will cause the memory strategy to present itself, and “individuals become
more active in initiating strategy use in a variety of situations as they
become older and more experienced” (Cox and Waters, p. 23, 1986). See table
1
Table 1
Development of strategy use with age
Processing conditions
Materials favorable less favorable
I. Early level- limited us of strategies
Favorable + -
Less favorable - -
II. Intermediate level –Broader use of strategies
Favorable + +
Less Favorable + -
III. Final level – sophisticated use of strategies
Favorable + +
Less favorable + +
Note. +, Presence of strategy use; -, absence of strategy use.
(Chart adapted from Cox and Waters, p 24,
1996.)
Cox and Waters (1998) took 48 school aged children from each of the following grades, grade one, three and five. Each of the three groups of 48 consisted of 24 boys and 24 girls. The task that Cox and Waters set them selves to was to have the children listen to and then recall a list of nouns as catagorizable words. There were two conditions in the experiment. The first condition consisted of simply listening to the word list and then recalling the words that they could remember. The second condition, the semantic assisted task consisted of listening to the words and after each word one of two questions was asked. ON question asked if the object would fit into a box while the other question asked if the object could be bought at the store. This had the function of categorizing the items into items at the store and items in the box.
In order to minimize the differences in task difficulties Cox and Waters (1998) imposed the following restrictions on the subjects. Fist graders had a list of 16 words, third graders had 20 words and fifth graders had 24 words to recall. The recall test was repeated three times for each subject. One further restriction was that the first graders were allowed five-second intervals between each where as third graders four seconds and fifth graders were only allowed three seconds between hearing each word from the word list. The study was considered valid and it supported the “general development framework of strategy usage” (Cox and Waters p 33, 1986) it was designed to test. The specific finding was that of the three age groups the third graders showed the most significant level of difference between the age groups and between the difficulty levels.
In another similar experiment Kobasigawa & Middleton (1972) took 120 children from a sample of kindergarten, third and fifth grade school age children. Twenty-four black and white line drawings were used in a free recall test. These pictures were adapted from the Moely, Olsen, Halwes and Flavel study (cited in Kobasigawa et al 1972). The pictures were broken down into four treatment groups consisting of either categorically grouped or randomly grouped pictures. Furthering this breakdown the pictures had assigned to the conditions the factor of either absent or present of explicit identification. Each card was individually described to the subjects and it was ensured that the correct label was applied to the picture if the child was mistaken, presumably to account for homogeneity in the results of total recall. The participants were then given two minutes to study the pictures. Following that the participants were given two more minutes to recall as many pictures as they possibly could.
The results of the Kobasigawa & Middleton (1972) study showed that the grade five children recalled significantly more that he grade three children and that the grade three children recalled significantly more than the kindergarten children. The most significant recall differences between groups was found in the easy to recall categories i.e., categorically grouped with the presence of explicit identification, however the kindergarten group were the only group not significantly affected by any of the conditions. It was taken as a reliable study that showed older children have superior recall that younger children were younger children fail to detect the categorized nature of learning material and will subsequently fail to use efficient organization strategies.
The purpose of this experiment is to test whether or not the organizational strategy changes with age. Firstly does the organizations strategy occur earlier when children are instructed to use it? The prediction is that when instructed to, five to seven year olds can use organizational strategies and benefit from them but they do not use them spontaneously. Secondly does the organization strategy use occur when materials encourage its use? The prediction is that children will spontaneously use organizational strategies and benefit from them at a younger age when memory stimuli are easy to categorize then when they are hard to categorize.
Method.
Participants
There are two groups of participants. From the original sample 71 males and 91 females were taken and tested. This was further broken down into 18 children from age groups 5-7, 8-10 and 11-14. Next two boys aged six and eight years of age were selected (see appendix). One of the new participants of the two tested did not meet the needs of the experiment. The total of participants that are in the experiment was thus 72 males and 91 females, totaling 162 participants.
Materials
Two tally sheets were used to record the results. Two consent forms were used to gain consent from the two selected participants parents. There were two sets of black and white line drawings, five practice pictures in one set and 24 test pictures for the easy to categorize group in the other set. A full list of pictures is presented in Table 2. Futher more a large pillow-case was used to cover the pictures up when the memorizing stage had finished.
Table 2
Black and white line drawings used in this experiment.
|
Practice Tree Tooth brush Car Whistle Saw |
Hard to categorize pictures Scissors Bus bird Watch Gun Comb House Stool Bag Telephone Pen Doll Apple Boat Dog Ball Flower Trousers Bread Hammer Pot |
Easy to categorize Camel, frog mouse horse, dog,
rabbit. Tomato, apple carrot, mushroom, sandwich, banana. Sweatshirt, tie, hat, trousers, sock, shoe, Bowl, kettle, rolling pin, pot, fork, cup |
Procedure.
The instructions for each group were given to all the experimenters (see appendix). This experiment used the instruction to test the easy to categorize group. The participants were seated at a table in a quite area were they would not be distracted. There was a digital clock on the table to monitor the time. The five practice pictures were spread out onto the table in a row and the children were asked if there were any pictures that they could not name and if so were told that name of the picture. Then the following statement was said to the children.
Now we are going to play the memory game. You study the pictures and try to remember them. After one minute, I’ll cover them up and you tell me what they were.
After one minute the pictures were covered over. The children were asked then to remember as many of the pictures as possible. The number of pictures recalled was recorded on the tally sheet for each participant. Next of all the experimenter said
Now we are going to play the memory game again with a lot of pictures.
The participants were taken through the 24 easy to categorize pictures one at a time and asked to name each one. They were assisted with correctly identifying the pictures by the experimenter. Then the experimenter said:
Now I’m going to put all of the pictures on the table. When I’m finished you will have three minutes to study them. You may touch them, or move them around, or pick them up, or do anything you like to help you learn them. After three minutes, I’ll cover them up, and you will try to name as may of them as you can. You do not have learn them in any special order.
The pictures were place in rows, four rows of five and one row of four. Over a three-minute period the participants were left to memorize the pictures and there behavior whilst doing this was noted. When the three minutes was up the pictures were covered and the child was asked to recall as may of the pictures as they could. The answers were recorded on the tally sheet. Finally the children were asked to describe the way they went about learning the pictures and the responses were recorded on the tally sheet. The experiment was then ended.
Results
The scores of the two participants tested in this experiment were recorded on the data sheet though they are summarized briefly in the following table.
Table 3.
Results of experiment
Boy 1 2
Practice Score 4 5
Test score 17 7
Strategies used rehearsal none
Age group 8-10 5-7
Actual age 8 6
Statistical information from the original sample was adapted for the purpose of statistical analysis. The number of pictures recalled was analyzed using a 3 x 3 ANOVA. The age groups were 5-7, 8- 10, and 11- 14. and the conditions were hard, easy and instructed easy. There was a significant effect of age, f(2, 153) =61.36, p < 0.05. There was a significant interaction between age and condition f(2, 153) =61.36, p < 0.05. There was also a significant interaction between age and condition f(2, 153) =61.36, p < 0.05. To investigate this interaction Tukeys HSD tests were calculated.
Table 4
Number of pictures recalled
Age
Condition 5-7 8-10 11-14
Hard 9.61a 11.06a 18.28cd
Easy 10.28a 15.17bc 18.22cd
Instructed easy 12.5ab 17.67cd 19.71d
NOTE: Any tables that have the same or include
the same letter don’t significantly differ from each other
ab is no
significantly different from a or b
If they do not have the same letter then they are significantly
different from each other.
The strategy rating scale was collapsed down into two ratings: absent or incomplete organization versus complete or elaborate organization.
One boy from the present test was added into the results of each group and the following table represents the number and percentage of those boys and girls who showed a complete or elaborate organization.
Table 5
Number and percentage of subjects displaying a complete or elaborate organization
Age
Number percentage
Condition 5-7 8-10 11-14 5-7 8-10 11-14
Hard 1 3 7 5.5% 16.6% 39%
Easy 1 7a 8 5.5% 37.9%b 44%
Instructed easy 8 12 17 45% 66.6% 94.4%
a represents the score that was added
in
b
represents the new percentage from a added in.
These results show that among the 5-7 year olds the instructed easy group were OK at the recall task were as the hard and easy group among the 5-7 year olds had poor recall. Only 2 out of 36 participants among the 5-7 year olds scored well enough to be categorized into the complete or elaborate (see table 4). The eight to ten year olds have an increase in members of the complete or elaborate strategy use. Twelve eight to ten year olds in the instructed easy and seven, eight to ten year olds in the easy category. The eleven to fourteen group show a substantial increase of 5 participants more scoring in the complete or elaborate group as opposed to only 12 in the 8- 10 groups instructed easy. The easy group did not significantly differ from those in the eight to ten year group of easy only differing by one participant, though one participant was added into the table (see subscript a table 5). The hard to categorize group differed significantly between eight to ten year olds and eleven to fourteen year olds, with a difference of four participants (see table 4).
The 5 to seven year olds did not perform particularly well in any age group where as the 11 to 14 year olds performed quite good in all the conditions. The eight to ten year olds showed a poor result in the hard category and ok results in the easy category and good results in the instructed easy category. There was a poor result in the hard condition of 8- 10 year. This is not as important in children in the 5-7 year old group who were unaffected to a significant extent with the encouragement offered in the easy and easy instructed categories. In opposition to that is the fact that 11 14 year olds did not significantly vary their good scores along down from hard to easy instructed.
The fact that the favorable condition did not have a greater impact in the 5-7 year olds in an indication that the constraints may not have been appropriate.
A further analysis of the two participants was done to see if a trend could be found among in the recall of the pictures.
Table 6
Order of category information presented versus Recalled items.
Subject
Category 1 2 difference both gota neither gotb
Animals 6/6 2/6 4/6 2/6 0/6
Clothing 4/6 0/6 4/6 0/6 1/6
Utensils 4/6 2/6 2/6 1/6 2/6
Food 3/6 3/6 0/6 1/6 1/6
Total 17/24 7/24
a Both got is were both partipants
recalled the same items from the numerical placing on the list
b Neither got is were both participants did not get the same items form the numerical list
Further more this was graphed to produce what appears to be a trend that indicates the presence of strategies that develops between the age of 6 and 8. Figure one below shows Boy number ones results and figure number 2 shows boy number 2 results.
Figure 1
Figure 2
