How Does the Mode of Taking In Information Affect a Student's Recall of Information?

Overview

Objectives/Goals We tried to find out how the mode of taking in information, hearing a story or reading one, affects the student's recollection of the information. We believe that overall, although many people will differ in results, most will have higher scores in the visual because they can read at their won pace and re-read parts if they drift or are not paying enough attention. Methods/Materials Our subjects consisted of 8th grade students. We divided them into two groups, Group A and Group B, and tested them over the course of four days. On day one, Group A read a story and Group B had the same story read to them. Then they took a 10 question test on the information 20 minutes later. On day two, three and four, they switched off, each reading and having the story read to them twice. Results On day one, the six students in group one had the story read to them and had an average of four of ten factual recall questions correct. The ten students of group two read the story themselves, and had an average of 5.5 correct. On day two, group one read the story and had an average of six correct. Group two now had the story read to them, and scored an average of five correct. Day three group one had the story read to them again and group two read the story themselves, both scoring an average of 7.5. Day four, group one read the story, averaging 5.2. Day four group two heard the story and averaged about 5.5 correct. The average of the students in both groups who read the story themselves scored six of ten factual recall questions correct. The average of the students in both groups who heard the story scored 5.46 of ten factual recall questions correct. The conclusion to our experiment is reading a story or hearing it oneself did not have much effect on the students# recollection of the information. Conclusions/Discussion Our experiment seems to show that reading something or having someone read it to someone does not have a large effect on how well information is retained. This is important because if there was a large impact with most students it could affect how teachers teach or how most people try to learn new information. Teachers may find this experiment helpful because it could affect the way they teach. If there were a large difference within the subjects' scores, teachers may change the way they teach in order to help their students retain more information.

Competition history

• CSEF 2009 Cognitive Science (Junior Division Only) · Entry J0602

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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