Inducing children to generate mnemonic organizational strategies: An examination of long-term retention and materials.

Abstract

Whether children's strategy transfer is influenced by prior experience was investigated in a memory context. Specifically, experience with highly related materials was predicted to facilitate subsequent use of organizational strategies and recall of low-associated items. In Experiment 1, 3rd graders induced to use organizational strategies through exposure to categorical materials demonstrated better recall and organization, both immediately and 3-5 days later, than children explicitly trained in strategy use. Experiment 2 examined age-related differences in materials that would induce children to generate organizational strategies on their own. Third graders exposed to categorical materials exhibited better recall and organization of low associates, whereas functional materials facilitated 6th graders' performance. In both experiments, metamemory and simulated teaching instructions mirrored memory performance. Without direct instruction, experience with strongly associated materials induces children independently to discover and use organizational strategies with less-related materials.Previous research has shown that during the school-age years, children become more proficient in using mnemonic techniques that enhance their performance in deliberate recall tasks (e.g., Lange, 1978;Ornstein & Naus, 1978). For example, when asked to sort words into groups to facilitate later recall, older children are more likely than younger ones spontaneously to form meaning-based groups with low-associated items (e.g., Bjorklund, Ornstein, & Haig, 1977). Although younger children may have the associative knowledge to form meaningful groups, they generally do not spontaneously use their knowledge in service of a memory goal as do older children (Bjorklund et al., 1977;Corsale & Ornstein, 1980). \bunger children do, however, sort categorized items into meaningful groups in preparation for recall without explicit instructions to do so when provided with a supportive context (Best & Ornstein, 1986;Corsale, 1978).The contrast between younger children's memory task sorting patterns with low-associated and categorical materials indicates the importance of context in children's memory performance and development (Ornstein, Baker-Ward, & Naus, 1988). Ornstein et al. (1988) have speculated that when younger children are provided with highly supportive contexts or salient

Memory Development from Early Childhood Through Emerging Adulthood

“…Research using a variety of materials (e.g., categorized words, texts) has consistently demonstrated that children with more detailed knowledge of the to-beremembered information recall that information better and typically implement strategies more effectively than children with less detailed knowledge (e.g., Best 1993;Bjorklund and Zeman 1982;Schneider 1986;). …”

A dynamic systems model of basic developmental mechanisms: Piaget, Vygotsky, and beyond.

“…Transfer differs among cognitive domains (Brown, 1990) and is affected by factors like metacognition (Alexander, Carr, & Schwanenflugel, 1995). Transfer has been measured in a variety of tasks, for instance, memory strategies, where considerable individual and age differences have been found (Best, 1993; Block, 1993). It can be concluded that empirical indicators for the model's parameters can be found, although it is unlikely that the parameters can be reduced to single psychological variables.…”

A developmental framework for memory rehabilitation in children

“…There are an increasing number of positive findings that suggest that training in strategy usage can be adapted to suit both strategic and cognitive limitations in young and impaired children [67,74,75] just as strategies can be adapted to benefit adults with learning difficulties [76,77]. Where executive deficits limit strategic use of working memory, external cues to implement a strategy may lead to functional improvement or executive and planning abilities could themselves be the primary target for rehabilitation efforts [78,79].…”