Formal operations and organizational memory strategies in bright adolescents

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Kathryn Benton Wyatt (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Mary Fulcher Geis

Abstract: The present research was designed to test the hypothesis that individual differences in organizational memory strategies are associated with formal and non-formal status as defined by Fiaget. It was predicted that (a) both formal and non-formal adolescents would employ organizational strategies but that differences would occur in the efficiency with which the strategy was used and (b) if organization were induced, the non-formal adolescent would profit. Six Piagetian tasks were used to identify seven boys and seven girls who are formal-operational and seven boys and seven girls who are not formal-operational. The subjects were selected from a pool of 15- year-old, ninth-grade adolescents with Lorge-Thorndike scores over 115. After the subjects received the Piagetian tasks, they were given a sixtrial free recall of unrelated words task. In a second session, subjects were administered a six-trial free recall of categorized words task. The categorized words task was followed by a metamemory inventory in which the children described their approaches to real-world situations, involving memory of such items as locker combinations, material for tests, and items to buy in a grocery store. In a third session, subjects received a sort-to-criterion task, in which they sorted a set of words into as many piles as they wished. After they achieved the criterion of two identical sorts, they were asked to recall the words. The adolescents then answered metamemory questions concerning the strategies which they had used in the memory tasks.

Additional Information

Publication
Dissertation
Language: English
Date: 1977
Subjects
Mnemonics
Memory in adolescence

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