Grant et al

• Aim: To test for context dependant effects caused by the presence or absence of noise during learning & retrieval of meaningful material.
• Research has shown that context-dependence may play an important role in numerous situations, such as memory for studied material
• Grant et al were interested in determining whether environmental context-dependency effects would be found with the type of material and the type of tests typically encountered in school
• Their focus is more on study conditions than on differences in classroom testing conditions because they hold that students have more control over their study environments than over their test environments
• Observations had shown them that many high school and college students study material in environments very different from those in which they are tested
• Participants: 39

  aged 17-56

  17 male, 23 female
• IV's were: (i)whether the participant read the two page article under silent or noisy conditions (ii)whether the participant was tested under matching or mismatching conditions
• DV:the participant’s performance on a short-answer recall test and a multiple-choice test.
• Method:

  background noise was recorded during lunchtime in a university cafeteria.

  The tape was played at a moderately loud level.

  A two-page, three-columned article on psychoimmunology was the to-be-studied material.

  The dependant variable of retrieval was measured in two ways (recall and recognition):

  Recall: a short-answer test of 10 questions (always given first)

  Retrieval: 16 multiple choice questions-

  The entire procedure lasted about 30 minutes.
• Result: showed studying & testing in same environment produced better resu

  
• Context-dependency effects


  Effects on learning of newly learned meaningful material, regardless of whether a short-answer test or a multiple-choice test is used to assess learning
• Studying and testing in the same environment leads to enhanced performance
• Students are likely to perform better in exams if they study for them with a minimum of background noise
• Although there was no overall effect of noise on performance, the fact that there was evidence for context-dependency suggests students are better off studying without background noise as it will not be present during actual testing