11. Cognitive Practical Flashcards
What is our practical’s aim?
Our aim is to partly replicate Peterson and Peterson’s research on trigrams, to see if rehearsal improves recall.
What is our practical’s null hypothesis?
There will be no significant difference between the number of repeats of the trigram said aloud (1 or 3) and number of correctly recalled trigrams (0-3).
What is our practical’s experimental hypothesis?
There will be a significant improvement in the number of repeats of the trigram said aloud and number of correctly recalled trigrams for the 3 repeats condition versus one repeat of the trigram.
What is our practical’s operationalised IV?
Number of repeats of the trigram said out loud, either 1 or 3.
What is our practical’s operationalised DV?
Number of correct trigrams recalled out of max 3, for three trials per condition.
What is our practical’s participant design?
-Repeated measures.
-In one condition the participant was asked to repeat the trigram once aloud, whereas in the other they repeated the trigram three times before counting backwards.
Describe our sample.
Our sample consisted of 10 male and female teachers of different subjects from out school. We had an equal split of male and female teachers with a range of ages from London.
How did we gather our sample?
We gathered our data by opportunity sampling. We stated that the experiment was looking at memory to see how we process information to teachers who we know within school and that the venue would be in a classroom.
Describe our practical’s procedure.
Memory was measured as the number of totally correct trigrams remembered after 18 seconds of a distraction task as a score of 0-3.
- Presented participant with consent form which they signed if they agreed to participate.
- Read aloud standardised method to participant.
- Conducted 2 practice trials, one of which they repeated the trigram once before counting backwards in threes and the other of which they repeated a trigram 3 times before counting backwards in 3s.
- Conducted 3 trials with the trigrams with different letters where they repeated it once before counting backwards in threes from a given number for 18 seconds.
- Then conducted 3 trials with different letters where they repeated it 3 times before counting backwards in threes from a given number for 18 seconds.
- We recorded what they recalled at the end of the 18 seconds and then scored whether they got it completely correct or not.
- We then calculated the mean, median, mode and the standard deviation of our data and created a histogram from this as well as conducting a Wilcoxon statistical test.
How did we adhere to ethical guidelines?
-We first gave the participants consent forms, we stated the experiment was looking at memory to see how we process information and that they had the right to withdraw during or after the experiment.
-We kept all of our participants identity anonymous.
-After the experiment ended we gave our participants a debrief about the true aim which was to see whether more repetitions would improve memory recall.
Describe your quantitative data analysis.
-To analyse our quantitative data we worked out the measures of central tendency for the two groups (repeated once and repeated three times). We found that the mean number of letters recalled was greater when the participants said the letters once aloud compared to when they said the letters three times.
-The standard deviation was also calculated which showed there was very little individual differences in the conditions and between the conditions because they were 1 and 1.06 out of a total score of 3, which shows that there was very little dispersal of memory rating around the mean.
-We used a Wilcoxon stat’s test to look at whether results were significant or not and found that results were not significant because the T value of 7 was not less than or equal to that critical value of 0 for a one tailed test, p<0.05, N=5. Therefore there is a not a significant different in memory recall for trigrams when participants repeated the trigram once compared with three times.
What were our practicals result?
MEAN
Once: 2.14
Three times: 2.0
STANDARD DEV
Once: 1.06
Three times: 1
What can you conclude from the raw data?
-We were unable to partly replicate Peterson and Peterson’s research on trigrams and concluded that repitition of a trigram does not improve recall in STM.
What are some strengths of our cognitive practical?
-Sample included both males and females from different departments of the school, therefore the sample was representative of both genders and different skills so results on how repetition improves STM can be generalised to both male and female adult teachers.
-Collected data in a controlled environment of a classroom to increase internal validity because this meant that there was reduced extraneous variables. We shut all windows and doors to eliminate distractions of sound as well as placing a sign on the door to inform other students that a psychology practical was taking place to prevent the participant from being interrupted, affecting their recall of the trigram.
What are some weaknesses of our cognitive practical?
-Results lack generalisability as opportunity sampling was used which means the sample collected is unrepresentative as the sample only contained teachers working in our school who had time to attend, so not representative of all teachers as these members share similar characteristics so results on how repetition improves STM are low in generalisability to all teachers at our school and all adults in the UK.
-Lacks external validity. The experiment was done in a classroom which means it is not reflective of a real life environment so we cannot be sure memory works the same in a natural environment.
