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What is the aim?
To examine the development of digital span across different age groups, and to see how these results compared to aged people and Alzheimer’s and dementia patients
What was the procedure?
– 570 volunteer participants - Selected from public and private schools in Madrid.
– Children said they did not suffer any reading writing or listening impairments.
– Sequence of digits were read out loud at the rate of one per second and increasing by one digit each time
– Task was carried out during break time, participants were asked to recall digits in the order they Were read out
–Task was set out for each individual at a time
What were the results?
– Digit span increased with age
– Digit span was very similar at age of 15–17
– Elderly have a higher digit span than five-year-olds
– Alzheimer patients had higher digit span than five-year-olds
What is the Conclusion?
– At age nine there is a noticeable difference in digit span
– English speakers had higher digit span
– Elderly also have a similar digit span to patients with dementia- Suggests poor digit span occurs because of age, not dementia
Grave analysis
… next FC
What is the generalisability?
😊 – meals + females = not bias
😊– Spanish children’s sample made possible comparison with English children previous research
😞- Volunteer sample so may have ultimate motive to take part
😞 – can’t generalise findings to other cultures
😞 – participants with hearing, reading and language impairments were excluded so impossible to generalise findings to this sub-group
Conclusion – research found the digit spin in other cultures is affected by pronunciation time
What is the reliability?
🙂 – standardised procedure – all participants subjected to the same procedure
CA- Use of cross-sectional design is problematic as participants were not trapped through time so there could be subtle differences between age groups – couldn’t track consistency overtime
Conclusion – good internal reliability, would be possible to replate – external reliability of findings could be measured
Application
Use of measures of digit span to detect dyslexia – associated with four digit span
Limited digit span of younger children – important to primary school teachers
What is the validity?
🙂 – possible confounding variables were controlled (EG rate of digits, hearing and reading impairment) – easier to infer cause and effect relationship between age and digit span – good internal validity
😞 – lack of ecological validity – recalling sequence of digit is no every day task
Conclusion – further research is needed to investigate more everyday learning using more everyday tasks
What are the ethics?
🙂🙂 – participants were volunteers and had right to withdraw
😞😞 – children so unable to gain informed consent, even if parental consent is given
😞😞 – protection of participants – children may be upset if performance was below average
Conclusion – scientific benefits of research outweigh the to low ethical costs
