Memory for everyday information in students with learning disabilities

This study compared students with and without learning disabilities (LD) on their recall of academic information and information encountered in the students' everyday lives. The academic recall measures included a sentence listening span test, a rhyming words working memory test, and a visual matrix working memory task. Students' cued recall of all the tasks was also measured. The everyday working memory tasks included a dance episode event recall test; a library procedure recall test; and recall tests of commonly found objects, such as a coin, a telephone, and a McDonald's sign. Compared to students without LD, students with LD performed poorly on both the academic recall tasks and the everyday recall tasks. These results support the notion that some students with LD may have working memory problems that affect their performance on tasks other than reading. The results of the cued recall showed that the availability of cues significantly decreased the ability group differences on many of the academic and everyday tasks. This result replicates prior research findings that students with LD do not use retrieval strategies effectively and that some students with LD may have a production deficiency that affects their retrieval of previously encoded information.     

The Use of the Microgenetic Method with Children with Disabilities: Discovering Competence

In this paper, we advocate the use of the microgenetic method, a methodology that combines dense sampling of observations across time and extensive trial-by-trial analysis, to examine strategy change in children with disabilities. This methodology has revealed new information about normally achieving children's cognition, such as large individual variability in strategy use among children of the same age and more gradual patterns of strategy change than previously assumed. In this paper, we review data from three different microgenetic studies in the domains of memory, arithmetic, and reading with children with or at risk for mental retardation and normally achieving children. Our review indicates that there are similar sequences of strategy change, similar rates of strategy change, and similar frequency of strategy discovery and use in children with and without mental retardation (compared to mental age peers). Implications are discussed for the use of this methodology to design instructional techniques for children with disabilities.     

Elaboration and metamemory during adolescence

The memory performance of 7th- and 11th-grade students was examined as a function of instructional conditions on two different cued recall tasks. In addition, several metamemory measures were obtained to examine the relationship between metamemory and actual performance during adolescence. Seventh-grade students performed better with elaborative prompting instructions on the more difficult cued recall task. Eleventh-grade students, however, performed better with control instructions than with repetition instructions for both tasks, and performed as well as those with elaboration instructions on the less difficult list. On the more difficult list, those students with elaboration instructions recalled more nouns than those with control instructions. Eleventh-grade students also appeared to be more accurate in their prediction of performance, reported more elaboration-type strategies, and appeared to have more knowledge of memory variables than did 7th-grade students.     

Some Verbal Aspects of the 1937 Revision of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test,Form L

The authors examined an activity-based listening strategy with first- and third-grade children in mixed-grade dyads. On the basis of theories of cognitive development and previous research, the authors predicted the following: (a) children in an activity-based strategy would recall more story events compared with those in a repetition strategy and (b) children who performed activity would recall more events compared with those who observed activity. In addition, previous visual imagery research suggested that (c) recall in favor of the activity-based strategy would be observed when the toys were removed and imagery instructions were provided. The results confirmed the first prediction that the activity-based strategy would improve children's memory for story content. The second prediction was not supported: Physical manipulation did not improve memory beyond observing the actions performed by a peer. Last, third-grade students benefited from imagery instructions after training, whereas first-grade students did not. The authors discuss the theoretical and education implications of the results.     

Memory Self-Efficacy,Aging, and Memory Performance: The Roles of Effort and Persistence

The relative importance of mental effort, as indicated by strategy use, and persistence as potential mediators of the memory self-efficacy (MSE)/memory performance relationship was investigated within a sample of 26 adults aged 65 years and older. It was found that persistence but not strategy use was predictive of performance on a free-recall task. Age-related declines were found in persistence, performance, and MSE but not in strategy use. Counter to expectation, neither strategy use nor persistence was significantly related to a global measure of MSE. These results highlight the importance in MSE research of distinguishing mental effort and persistence, of task-specific measures of MSE, and of considering age-related changes within the elderly population. Implications for MSE intervention programs are briefly discussed.     

Making Connections Efficiently: A Comparison of Two Approaches Used by College Students to Construct Networks

This study compared the effects of two approaches to networking. Two intact classes of college students participated in this study. The major focus of this study was to examine the extent to which the mental construction of networks was sufficient for recall to occur. Two intact classes of students participated in this study. Experimental participants were taught to construct their own networks both on paper and mentally while control participants were not. Recall of ideas was assessed at the pretest and at the posttest using a free-written recall task and a multiple-choice test. The results showed that networking mentally is as effective for recalling ideas and more time-efficient than networking on paper. Moreover, participants used different networking modalities depending on the passage to be read and the level of detail they are attempting to recall. The results are promising as they provide college students with a powerful tool that encourages cognitive processing without unnecessarily depleting their time resources. However, the results of this study also reveal that some initial experience with the strategy is necessary.     

Recall performance on a central-incidental memory task by profoundly deaf children.

Bebko (1984) reported that deaf children tend not to use spontaneously active memory strategies such as rehearsal in tasks requiring recall of ordered, temporal information. The present study investigated whether this tendency is task specific or generalized to other experimental paradigms. A central-incidental paradigm was used with profoundly deaf children and hearing children 6 to 13 years of age. The results for the hearing students replicated previous studies: central recall increased with age, but incidental recall changed little. For the deaf children, the results initially appeared very similar to those of the hearing children. However, on closer examination, the rehearsal strategies of the deaf students seemed less effective in mediating their recall. They apparently compensated for these difficulties by capitalizing on unique spatial features of the task, leading to recall levels comparable to those of the hearing students. Therefore, similar performance may not have been the result of equal strategy use but, rather, of the use of additional strategies by the deaf students. This study reinforced the need to provide additional training for deaf students in the use of memory strategies such as rehearsal when information is to be remembered in a sequential manner.     

Students' recording accuracy in the reciprocal and the self-check teaching styles in physical education

The aim of the study was to record students’ recording accuracy when they practised with the reciprocal and the self-check styles in physical education and examine whether recording accuracy contributed to students’ performance. Participants were 48 fifth- and sixth-grade students who were randomly assigned to 3 experimental groups (reciprocal style, self-check style, sequential use of the reciprocal and the self-check styles). The results showed that students were moderately accurate in peer- and self-recording with a tendency to overestimate their performance. No difference among the 3 experimental groups in recording accuracy was found. Students who received more accurate feedback outperformed in the chest pass test those who received less accurate feedback. The results are discussed with reference to the use of the reciprocal and the self-check styles and the development of self-regulated learning in physical education.     

Providing external feedback and prompting the generation of internal feedback fosters achievement,strategies and motivation in concept learning

The Interactive Two Feedback Loops Model (Narciss, 2008, 2013) suggests that not only providing external feedback but also prompting students to generate internal feedback may influence learning and motivation. This study aims at investigating the effects of internal and external feedback on achievement, strategy, and motivation in concept learning. Using a 2 × 3 experimental design with 121 teacher students we investigated the effects of combining internal feedback (i.e. self-explaining why a task solution is correct or incorrect) with three types of external feedback (no feedback; knowledge of result (KR); KR + knowledge about mistakes (KM)). Combining internal and external types of feedback was more beneficial for concept learning achievement, strategy use, as well as students’ intrinsic motivation, and perceived competence, than providing either internal or external feedback. Most notably, if students are asked to generate internal feedback in terms of self-explaining their responses, simple external KR feedback is as beneficial as elaborated KM-feedback.     

How is knowledge generated about memory encoding strategy effectiveness?

This study evaluated how people learn about encoding strategy effectiveness in an associative memory task. Individuals studied two lists of paired associates under instructions to use either a normatively effective strategy (interactive imagery) or a normatively ineffective strategy (rote repetition) for each pair. Questionnaire ratings of imagery effectiveness increased and ratings of repetition effectiveness decreased after task experience, demonstrating new knowledge about strategy effectiveness. Cued recall confidence judgments, measuring confidence in recall accuracy, were almost perfectly correlated with actual recall and strongly correlated with postdictions—estimates of recall for each strategy. A structural regression model revealed that postdictions mediated both changes in second-list predictions and changes in strategy effectiveness ratings, implicating accurate performance estimates based on item-level monitoring as the key to updating strategy knowledge.     

Investigating self-regulated study strategies among postsecondary students with and without dyslexia: a diary method study

We investigated the use of self-regulated study strategies among undergraduates with dyslexia by means of extensive web-based diary data, comparing their strategy use to that of matched students without dyslexia who completed the diary in the same period. Additionally, we examined the perceived benefits of using the recorded strategies in both groups, as well as relationships between the recorded strategies and perceived self-efficacy and academic performance. Results indicated that across lecture, individual study, and social study contexts, students with and without dyslexia recorded a comparable, broad range of strategies, yet students with dyslexia seemed to use particular visual and social strategies more consistently than did students without dyslexia. Across the three study contexts, both students with and without dyslexia also perceived the strategies they recorded in the diaries to be quite beneficial, but with particular visual and social strategies seemingly perceived as more helpful by students with dyslexia. Finally, self-regulated study strategies were positively related to perceived self-efficacy and academic performance among the students with dyslexia but not among the students without dyslexia. We discuss the possibility that the diary method used to assess strategy use among students with dyslexia in different study contexts over time was more appropriate for revealing the breadth and value of their strategy repertoire than the decontextualized, one-time questionnaire and interview approaches used in prior work.     

Changes in Memory Prediction Accuracy: Age and Performance Effects

Memory performance predictions are subjective estimates of possible memory task performance. The purpose of this study was to examine possible factors related to changes in word list performance predictions made by younger and older adults. Factors included memory self-efficacy, actual performance, and perceptions of performance. The current study examined the age differences in a sample of 59 older adults (M = 76.83 years) and 52 younger adults (M = 21.19 years) on memory predictions and the accuracy of those predictions for both an immediate and delayed word recall task. While memory self-efficacy did not influence predictions for either group, perceived and actual performance at immediate recall was related to accuracy of predictions at delay for both groups. In addition, there was a significant age-by-time interaction such that older adults became more accurate over time whereas younger adults declined slightly in their prediction accuracy. These findings suggest that older adults are able to make accurate adjustments to their predictions based on both their perceived and actual performance on tasks.     

Learning from split-attention materials: Effects of teaching physical and mental learning strategies

Learners learn more from spatially separated text and pictures after they have been instructed to physically integrate these sources than without such an instruction. We investigated whether instructing learners to mentally integrate textual and pictorial information would yield similar results. Eighty-seven participants studied a picture with accompanying text about an electrical circuit. Text and picture were presented as spatially separated sources or in an integrated format. In the separated format, participants were instructed to use (1) a mental learning strategy, (2) a physical learning strategy, or (3) no learning strategy. Participants in the separated condition using a mental learning strategy and the integrated condition obtained higher recall and comprehension (but not causal inference) performance than participants in the separate conditions with the physical- or no learning strategy. This indicates that instructing learners to mentally integrate spatially separated text and pictures when studying split-attention material can be an effective learning strategy.     

The role of working memory in spatial text processing: What benefit of imagery strategy and visuospatial abilities?

This study investigated the construction of a spatial model in relation to working memory (WM) and visuospatial abilities. Participants were trained to use either imagery or verbal strategies to process route spatial texts. Results obtained on a free recall task, a verification test and a graphic representation task showed the beneficial effect of using a strategy based on mental images. When imagery strategies were used, a concurrent articulatory task produced interference effects on recall performance, and a spatial tapping task also impaired performance as compared to the control condition. These interference effects suggest that both visuospatial and verbal WM were involved in construction of the spatial model. When repetition strategies were used, however, only the articulatory task produced interference effects, highlighting the role of the verbal WM. To elucidate how the involvement of the visuospatial component may differ in relation to visuospatial abilities, participants with good or poor ability in generation of visual images and spatial manipulation of objects were compared. The benefit of the imagery strategy was found in both groups, but whereas low-visuospatial imagery participants were sensitive to spatial interference, their high ability counterparts were not. These results question the role of imagery processes in the construction of spatial models and their relation to the visuospatial WM.     

Retrieval Cues On Tests: A Strategy for Helping Students Overcome Retrieval Failure

Students often struggle to recall information on tests, frequently claiming to experience a “retrieval failure” of learned information. Thus, the retrieval of information from memory may be a roadblock to student success. I propose a relatively simple adjustment to the wording of test items to help eliminate this potential barrier. Specifically, I examined whether embedding salient information from class lectures in test items as retrieval cues enhanced student performance on tests. In two studies, including both an upper- and lower-division course, student performance on identical test items with and without retrievals was compared. Student performance varied significantly depending on whether retrieval cues were embedded in the items, and in both courses the difference was at least a half letter grade (study 2) or more (study 1). These results suggest that the selective use of retrieval cues on tests may be an effective strategy for helping students overcome retrieval failure on tests.     

智障学生与正常学生再认记忆的比较研究

本研究采用中国韦氏智力量表和二项必选数字记忆测验对智障学生进行测试,二项必选数字记忆测验对正常学生进行测试,比较智障学生与正常学生及不同程度智障学生之间再认记忆的差异。结果显示1、智障学生与对照组二项测验容易条目得分的差异无统计学显著意义;困难条目得分、总分的差异有统计学显著意义;2、不同程度智障学生二项测验困难条目得分和总分的差异有统计学显著意义,容易条目得分的差异无统计学显著意义;困难条目得分智商为35-49分组显著低于智商为50-69分及70-85分组。由此得出结论智障学生的再认记忆因干扰刺激与目标刺激之间的辨别难易程度不同而存在损伤分离现象,其损伤也受到智力缺陷程度的影响。     

Computer-based knowledge of results feedback in different delivery modes: Effects on performance,motivation, and achievement emotions

Immediate Knowledge of Results (KR) feedback at the task level may motivate test takers by showing that their answers matter. Appealing feedback cues may help to prevent negative emotions in lower performers who receive a higher amount of negative feedback. In this experiment, we varied the presence of KR feedback and the feedback delivery mode in a 1 × 5 between-subjects design (i.e., no feedback vs. text, color, sound, or animation feedback) to investigate effects on learning outcomes and affective-motivational measures. Our sample included 661 fifth and sixth graders who solved two computer-based multiple-choice science tests. First, students worked on an 18-item treatment test (with experimental feedback manipulation). Students repeatedly rated their effort, enjoyment, pride, and boredom during the test, as well as their expectancy of success and attainment value after the test. Subsequently, they worked on a posttest (without feedback) that assessed recall and near-transfer learning. All KR feedback conditions significantly increased recall, but there was no evidence for near-transfer learning. Feedback had a significant, negative effect on attainment value, whereas significant interactions between the feedback conditions and students’ treatment performance revealed that feedback effects on several affective-motivational dimensions (i.e., expectancy of success, enjoyment, pride, and boredom) were performance-dependent. Feedback benefited higher performers’ motivation and affect but showed negative effects on some affective-motivational measures for lower performers. The pattern of results indicated that color/sound/animation feedback may have reduced the effect of performance on emotional feedback perception to some extent. However, none of the feedback conditions improved affective-motivational outcomes independent of students’ performance.     

Positive and Negative Self‐Perceptions: Is There a Cyclical Relationship Between Teachers' and Students' Perceptions of Effort,Strategy Use,and Academic Performance?

This study was part of a larger research program designed to investigate how effort interacts with strategy use to mediate the academic performance of successful students with learning disabilities (LD) and how teachers' and students' perceptions influence these relationships. The sample consisted of 46 students with LD and 46 matched students without LD and their seven teachers from Grades 6–8. A self‐report survey was used to obtain an index of students' perceptions of their effort, strategy use, academic struggles, and academic competence. Our findings indicated that students with LD with positive academic self‐perceptions were more likely to work hard and to use strategies in their schoolwork than were students with LD who had negative academic self‐perceptions. Teachers viewed students with LD who had positive academic self‐perceptions as working equally hard and attaining similar levels of academic competence as their peers without LD. In marked contrast, students with LD who had negative academic self‐perceptions were judged by their teachers as making limited effort in school and achieving at a below‐average level in comparison with their peers. Findings suggested a cyclical relationship between students' self‐perceptions and their teachers' judgments and supported the notion of a reciprocal strategy‐effort interaction.     

Effects of a memory strategy on second-graders’ performance and self-efficacy

This study investigated the mediating effects of learning a memory strategy on second-graders’ performance of a memory task and their self-efficacy for the task. Specifically, second graders were taught a strategy for organizing words into categories to increase their ability to remember lists of words. Their predictions of how many words they would subsequently remember were taken as a measure of self-efficacy for the task. The trained students not only outperformed their untrained counterparts on the memory task, but also predicted higher levels of future performance, indicating that their efficacy for the task had increased. Quantitative data were collected to measure students’ predictions and performance, while qualitative data provided insight into students’ strategy use and ability to articulate their actions.