Research into Long Term Memory
(BRLTM2K13)
(Southwell, Frazer and Rose)

Aims:

The aim of the researchers experiment was to test the long term memories of teachers at two different education sites. The two sites differed in the fact that one was a high school and the other was a sixth form centre. This difference was a factor that was being tested as in a high school set up, the teachers are in the environment with the pupils for a five year period, where in a sixth form set up, the teachers are only with the pupils for a maximum of three years, but on average only two years. The main factor that was being measured was the difference in remembering pupils that had left the particular education centre two years ago, and pupils that had left seven years ago.

Hypotheses:

Directional – significantly more pupils will be remembered by the teachers in the high school centre, than teachers from the sixth form centre. In particular, significantly more students that left the high school in 2010-11, than any other class that the researchers used.

Null – there will be no significant difference in the numbers of pupils remembered across the four class bands that were used.

Independent variable – the number of pupils that teachers could remember from each year, in the respected education centre, with the aid of a leaving picture.

Dependent Variable – The leaving picture that was shown to the teachers in the particular education centre. It was either a leaving picture from 2006-07 or from 2010-11.

Method:

The researchers used opportunistic sampling to gather the participants that were needed for the experiment. The participants used were eighteen teachers from the two separate education centres. However, there was one criterion that was needed form each participant. The teachers that they chose to take part had to have been working at the respected education centre for a minimum of eight years. This criterion was needed so that they could have been in contact with all of the pupils that were at the centres across the time period; 2006-present. The participants used were all full time teachers. They were either teaching at Downham Market Sixth Form Centre, or they were teaching at Terrington St. Clements High School. All of the participants had been teaching at their respected education centres for a minimum of eight years. The researchers used nine teachers from each school environment.

The researchers used leaving photos from the two education centres. In total there were four photos used; leavers from the high school from 2006-07 and 2010-11, and leavers from the sixth form, from the same years. In gathering these photos, the researchers had to gain permission from the education centres and had to search through leavers books from the sixth form in particular.

The researchers used a repeated measures design in their experiment, as they were first shown the leavers photo from 2006-07 and then were shown the photo from 2010-11. however, the repeated measures design was carried out as a field experiment, as the test took place in the teachers respected classrooms, so was a field experiment.

The researchers made the method a standardised procedure. This was achieved as all the teachers were given the same experience during the test, apart from of course, the environment in which they took the test; however, the environments were all in their own classrooms. So each teacher had the same, but personalised experience. All teachers were given the same amount of time to remember the number of students that they could. The conditions were kept the same, as there was no communication between the researchers and participants, and the surrounding environment for each test was kept silent. All participants were both briefed before the experiment and were debriefed after the experiment, using the same script.

Results:

[pic]

The graph above shows the