Grant et al

Background

has shown that context-dependence may play important role in numerous situations. 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. Observations had shown them that many high school and college students study material in environments very different from those in which they are tested. Grant et al therefore aimed to show that environmental context can have a more positive effect on performance in a meaningful memory test

Aim

• to show that environmental context can have a more positive effect on performance in a meaningful memory test when the test takes place in the same environment in which the to be remembered material was originally studied (the matching condition) than when the test occurs in a different environment (mismatching conditions)

Research method

• lab experiment - independent measures design

What is the Independent variable

Whether the participant read the 2 page article under silent or noisy conditions and whether participant was tested under matching or mismatching conditions

What is the Dependant variable

The participants performance on: a short answer recall test, a multiple choice recall test

Sample

39 participants aged 17 - 56 years (17 female, 23 male). 1 participants results were omitted from the analysis.

How was the sample chosen

8 members of a psychology laboratory class served as experimenter. Each experimenter recruited 5 acquaintances to serve as participants

Procedure: study phase

Instructions, describing the experiment as a class project and stating that participation was voluntary, were read aloud. Participants were asked to read the given article once. Participants were informed that their comprehension would be tested with both a short-answer test and a multiple choice test. All participants wore headphones while they read. Those in silent condition were told they would not hear anything over the headphones, whilst those in noisy condition were told they would hear moderately loud background noise but should ignore it. Reading times were recorded by the experimenters.

Procedure: testing phase

A break of around 2 mins between end of study phase and beginning of test phase was incorporated to minimise recall from short term memory. Short answer test was given, followed by multiple choice test. Participants were tested in either silent or noisy conditions. Regardless of testing conditions, all participants wore headphones. At end of testing phase participants were debriefed concerning the purpose of the experiment

Findings: mean scores for silent study/silent test

Short answer test: 6.7 Multiple choice test: 14.3

Findings: mean scores for silent study/noisy test

Short answer test: 4.6 Multiple choice test: 12.7

Findings: mean scores for noisy study/silent test

Short answer test: 5.4 Multiple choice test: 12.7

Findings: mean scores for noisy study/noisy test

Short answer test: 6.2 Multiple choice test: 14.3

Findings general

• results suggest participants in all groups spent around equal amounts of time studying the material

• studying and testing in same environment produced better results

Conclusions

• are context-dependency effects for 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 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 because, although there was no overall effect of noise on performance, they are better off studying without background noise as it will not be present during actual testing