Cognitive Practical

• What was the aim?

  To investigate if chunking information increases words in a word lists affects memory
• What was the alternative hypothesis?

  ppts who chunk word lists into similar categories when recalling them will recall more info
• What was the null hypothesis?

  there will be no significant difference in the amount of words recalled correctly between ppts who chunk info and who do not
• What was the

  -Opportunity sampling

  -33 students

  -Volunteers
• What was the procedure?

  1.gathered our sample through opportunity sampling

  2. Explained to them that they would see a grid of words and they had 2 minutes to memorie them, after the 2 minutes the words were removed and they had to write down as many words as they could.

  3. Every ppts gave consent and was made aware of their right to withdraw

  4. We repeated this to both conditions but prompted the 2nd condition to use chunking

  5. Gathered the data and wrote results down

  6. gave them a debrief and explained their results
• What was the mean result for the amount of words recalled correctly in condition 1?

  12.1
• What was the mean result for the number of words recalled correctly in condition 2?

  20.4
• What was the conclusion?

  Chunking caused more people to be able to remember more words
• Give 2 strengths of this study:

  1.Reliability: procedure was controlled and standardised which meant that it removed extraneous variables and could be repeated

  2.Ethics: gained consent for ppts and made them aware of their right to withdraw
• Give 2 weaknesses of the study:

  1.Generalisability: small sample size and only from college in the area, only 16-17 years old

  2.Eco-logical validity: only done in college which means there may be extraneous variables that are different for everyone