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ATHK1001 Assignment 1
Assignment 1
• Due date: 11:59pm Friday, April 11th (Week
7). Late penalties of 5% per day apply.
• Online submission: All submissions are to be
made online via the ATHK1001 Canvas
website. Submissions will be checked for
plagiarism.
• Word length: 1000 words across all questions
(exclude Questions 8 and 13). Penalties will
apply to papers that exceed this limit.
• Total marks: 60 (20% of total grade for class)
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What do we remember best?
• How we best remember things is something we
may ponder, especially when studying for exams.
• One reliable finding is that we tend to be better
at remembering material we generate ourselves
than material given to us (Slamecka & Graf,
1978).
• Most demonstrations of this generation effect
use verbal materials, but what about other types
of materials?
• In our experiment we tested the generation
effect for numbers.
Do we recall more when we can
anticipate being asked to recall?
• Students do not like surprise tests,
presumably because they believe we do
better if we can prepare.
• Will knowing that your memory is going to
be tested lead to better recall for both
generated materials and nongenerated
materials?
• We would expect the answer to be yes.
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Our experiment
• Two IVs: Task type and Order of presentation
• Independent variable Task type had two levels:
• Generation task: Asked questions like
– “In square kilometers, the area drained by the river
Nile”
– Then filled in a textbox with their answer
• Selection Task: Asked questions like
– “In 2012 was the total number of homicides in
Germany 662”
– Then select “Correct” or “Incorrect”
Memory tests
• After completing a task (consisting of nine
questions) participants saw the same nine
questions but now asked to recall answers.
• Generation Recall Task for each question asked
– “Please try to recall the number you previously
gave as the answer for this question”
– Then filled in a textbox with their answer
• Selection Recall Task for each question asked
– Please try to recall the number you previously saw
as the answer for this question
– Then filled in a textbox with the answer they saw
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IV Order of presentation
• Every participant did both tasks but one task had
to be first.
• So order condition also determined which task
would be done knowing to expect a memory test.
Selection-First orderGeneration-First order
Selection taskGeneration task
Selection Recall taskGeneration Recall task
Instruction to expect to be
asked to recall answers for
next task
Instruction to expect to be
asked to recall answers for
next task
Generation taskSelection task
Generation Recall taskSelection Recall task
Participants
• 348 students attempted the experiment during
ATHK1001 tutorials.
• 101 of these participants did not consent to
have their data used so were removed from the
analysis.
• 24 participants did not complete both tasks and
were removed.
• This left 223 participants to analyse
– 116 identified as female and 104 as male
– Only 4 reported being older than 23 years.
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Results
• Data file “Assignment1_dataset.xls” has been put on our
Canvas website. Each line represents a participant.
• Four variables, a column for each:
– 1. “id” is an arbitrary ID number.
– 2. “condition” is either “Generation first” or “Selection first”
– 3. “Generation_proportion” is proportion of number of answers
correctly recalled for generation task questions (i.e., number of
correct answers divided by number of answers given).
– 4. “Selection_proportion” is proportion of number of answers
correctly recalled for selection task questions (i.e., number of
correct answers divided by number of answers given).
• To be classed as correct all digits of the recall number
had to match the generated or given number.
Hypotheses
• Hypothesis 1: Mean recall for generated items will by different to mean recall for
selected items. We predicted that generated items will have a higher recall rate than
selected items.
• Hypothesis 2: There will be a correlation between recall for generated items and
recall for selected items. We predict this correlation will be positive.
• Hypothesis 3: For generated items, mean recall will be different depending on
whether recall was for items participants expected to have to recall verse those they
did not expect to recall. We predicted better memory for answers when the participant
knew they would have to recall them.
• Hypothesis 4: For selected items, mean recall will be different depending on whether
recall was for items participants expected to have to recall verse those they did not
expect to recall. We predicted better memory for answers when the participant knew
they would have to recall them.
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Your task
• Use Excel (or similar program) to analyse this data and
determine if the hypotheses have been supported.
• There are 13 questions to answer, each worth a
specified number of marks.
• Answer these questions with complete sentences
(except where a graph is requested), but do not repeat
the questions themselves. Don’t use tables.
• Some questions ask you to give interpretations, just try
to use your judgement and the tools you have been
given in the course to answer as well as you can.
– There are not necessarily single correct answers to such
questions.
Readings
• For the background of this experiment you should
read Slamecka and Graf (1978).
• This paper provides some background but you do not
have to know it in detail.
• It should however be cited in your answer to Q11.
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Formatting recommendations
• Our preference is that you use the font “Times
New Roman”, 12-point size, and double-space
all the lines.
– Indent the beginning of each paragraph using one
tab space.
• You should use APA style referencing and
citations, but we will accept other styles.
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