An investigation into the effect of chunking on recall Essays

An investigation into the effect of chunking on recall Essays An investigation into the effect of chunking on recall Essay An investigation into the effect of chunking on recall Essay I chose the experimental method because this brings advantages like I can control most of my variables but not all. Some controlled variables which I have are that each participant gets the same instructions, each person gets the same amount of time this is to keep the experiment as fair as possible.Some variables that I will not be able to control are things like the time of day I ask each person because I got to see when I have some spare time to do so, I will proberly not be able to make sure each person is under the same surroundings again due to time and this could affect my results because people mite not be at there best at a certain time of day. Participants My experiment is aimed at 16yr olds students of a mixed gender.They were selected through the opportunity sampling method because they were situated in the same room as my self and are all from the same college QE. Materials I used equipment such as a stopwatch to time each individual to make sure each one had the exact same time, I provided a pen and a sheet of paper for everyone who took part in my experiment. I chose my list of abbreviations by thinking of a topic like TV and than I thought about all the channels and there abbreviations but all had to be 3 letters each.Procedure The first thing I did after I had chosen what experiment I was going to do was think of a list abbreviations that had to be 3 letters each and altogether had to be 24 letters. I than made simple instructions for the participants to follow and printed it out. Later on I went into the canteen around 11am and asked people if they would take part in my experiment, I told them that they did not have to take part against there will and could withdraw at anytime during the experiment but also reassured them that all there information would be kept confidential.I gave each participant 1min to have a look at the letters, letter string or chunked list and than recorded the results on a rough sheet of paper. After I had gathered up all the info I started writing up my experiment. Discussion My results show that my prediction was correct and that more people remembered the letters from the chunked list than the letter string also that Millers theory was correct that if we chunk information and give them a meaning we are more likely to remember more than 7 things in our STM so my results agree with Millers theory.If I could make any modifications it would be that I would ask participants at the same time of day rather than at different times because this could affect the results because participants mite not be at there best at a certain time of day or mite jus be having a bad day altogether. Another thing I would change is that I would use only students who do not do psychology because people who do psychology mite now whats going on and may have already done the experiment before so this could affect the results if they know the theory behind the experiment.Criticism with my experiment is the location because the canteen was to noisy, I would like it be in a quite room were I could ask all the participants at the same time of day on the same day so it would be as fair as possible. If I was able to make these changes this may have affected my results because people may have remembered more letters in each situation and this may have even affected my hypothesis. Again the confounding variables were the noise, location, people may not have been at there best at that time of day and other general distractions occur in the canteen .Ethical issued were that I never forced anyone into participating and always gave them the option of withdrawing anytime during the experiment but also told them that all information would be kept confidential. Further work from this experiment is that I could use it to revise for final exams as it has lots of vital information. Results My results show that my prediction was correct and that chunking information increases capacity in your STM and also that Millers theory was correct