Bransford and Johnson 1972 - Schema Theory

Purpose/Aim

Aim to determine if schema activation would result in a better understanding and recall of an ambiguous text

Target Population/Sample/Participants

52 participants

Procedure

Irrespective of the group, all participants heard the following tape-recorded passage
passage was about a narrative about a balloon, containing 18 idea units (details)
Participants were instructed, after hearing the passage, to recall it as accurately as they could, and if they could not remember it word for word, to write down as many ideas as possible. They were given seven minutes to do that.
5 conditions:
1. no context - participants simply heard the passage
2. context before - prior to hearing the passage, participants were provided with a context picture and given 30 seconds to study it
3. context after - after hearing the passage, participants were provided with a context picture

Researcher's Results and Findings:

Out of the 18 idea units in the passage, participants were able to recall
no context 1 - 3.6 ideas
context before - 8 ideas
context after - 3.6 ideas
The context before condition made a difference. Hearing the same passage twice makes almost no difference in terms of comprehension and memory; presenting the context after the passage is no good; and a partial context (which shows the objects but not relations between them) is only marginally better than no context at all. Using the schema theory, these findings can be interpreted by referring to a "mental representation" that the full context picture creates prior to hearing the text passage. After the schema has been created (or activated) it influences the organization of our knowledge arguably, the idea units from the text passage are more effectively encoded because, in the process of encoding, they are linked with the schema

Evaluation

• Independent samples design

  • Participant variability with experience with washing clothes may be a ConV

  • Repeated measures design is not possible as text could not be reused

• Study is simplistic and can be replicated

  • Determine the reliability of the findings

• Artificial, lacks ecological validity

• But highly controlled, leading to high internal validity

  • Cause-and-effect relationship can be determined

• Not possible to know if a "laundry schema"was active while listening to the text

  • There should be other reasons for rate of recall e.g good memory skills