Evaluation of badley

• The sample was representative of the general population as it included both men and women.

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  Having high generalisation is a strength for the research, as the findings that long term memory is encoded semantically can be generalised to both males and females.

   
• However all of his participants had volunteered to take part in the experiment at the Cambridge Applied Research Unit and were from the local area nearby. This means sample may have been particularly interested in memory research and could be unrepresentative of wider population. So the findings on LTM being semantically encoded may not be generalisable to all people which could limit the usefulness of the findings.
• Baddeley’s classic study involved artificial task of recalling lists of words in the correct order, so task is not reflective of real life situations and thus lacking mundane realism. This means that the results of the study on encoding of LTM cannot be generalised to every-day tasks where people use their STM or LTM. Therefore, due to the artifical task, the results on LTM being semantically encoded may be inaccurate and not useful when generalising to normal every-day tasks which could mean the findings on memory are consistently wrong.

   
• The experiment procedure was standardised as the procedure was the same for all participants for all the trails, for example, the 10 words per list were shown one at a time, on a screen for 3 seconds.

  This means that the experiment can be repeated many times and always show consistent results on how memory is encoded in ST and LTM.

  This is a strength of Baddeley's procedure as if it is repeated consistent results on encoding of ST and LTM will be found, so the procedure was highly reliable.

   
• After the initial 5 trials when STM was tested, there was a delay of 15 mins followed by an interference task before one final test of the word order was done.The delay of 15 minutes meant that participants were using their LTM not their STM as STM only last about 30 seconds. In addition, the interference task prevented the ppts from using maintenance rehearsal in their STM.  shows high internal validity as the findings on LTM can be shown to accurately describe LTM rather than STM and meet the aim of investigating LTM.
• However, as the research was done in a lab setting, there is lower ecological validity as the setting is unnatural.

  This may lead to an affect on their behaviour as their memory could be distorted due to the unnatural setting. This would lead to questioning whether long term memory is semantically encoded or if the research is generalisable to long term memory outside of the lab setting.

   

  Therefore if the results are distorted due to the unnatural lab setting, then the results may be less accurate, so the conclusion that long term memory is encoded semantically, may not always be true.
• A strength of Baddeley's conclusions on ST and LTM encoding is that if we can use this knowledge to help to improve long-term recall of information. This is useful for students revising for exams. These strategies allow you to process the meaning of the material, which matches the form of encoding in LTM. This is a strength because it shows that Baddeley’s study has validity in terms of being applicable to real-life situations improvin society.
• Despite the fact these findings are unlikely to have harmful consequences such as social control e.g manipulation, a potential weakness of the findings is due to the very low generalisability. This is because the sample of participants were all from Cambridgeshire, therefore, these findings can only reliably be applied to the United Kingdom’s population and may not be able to be applied to those from other countries.

  However, it’s unlikely that there would be dramatic difference in how information is encoded for the LTM and STM.

   
• Baddeley’s study used controlled scientific procedures which meant he could conclude that encoding operates differently in STM and LTM.

  However, the findings have limited generalisability to real life because of the artificial nature of the laboratory-based procedures and tasks. Despite this, the study was an important stepping stone to a deeper understanding of memory because it highlighted the separation of STM and LTM and has very useful application to enhance learning.
• Describe the Sample

  Baddeley used a total amount of 72 men and women in his study. The group had volunteered at the Applied Psychology Research Unit in Cambridge University.
• Describe the Procedure reliability

  Words were presented on a screen (one word per slide for 3 seconds) before showing the next word (out of 10 words). Immediately after, participants took part in an interference task that would involve their STM where digits were read out at a 1 second rate and participants were then allowed 8 seconds to write down the correct sequence.
• Procedure validity

  In the lab experiment, words were presented on screen (one word per slide for 3 seconds) before showing the next word to 10 words. Immediately after, participants took part in interference task. Then they were allowed one minute to write out the 10 word sequence Again.4 trials were carried out of procedure. After 4th trial the participants had 15 min break, were asked to perform unrelated interference task involving copying digits. participants unexpectedly asked to recall word sequence again. The longer interference task wasbensure the final retest was testing LTM
• aim/conclusion/results

  Baddeley’s aim was to investigate whether the Long Term Memory encodes acoustically (based on sound) or semantically (based on meaning).

  Baddeley found out that List A (the acoustically similar list) was initially harder to learn however this did improve. He also found out that List C (the semantically similar list) had a much worse recall at the unexpected retest of the control list. To conclude Baddeley found that the STM encodes acoustically and the LTM encodes semanticall