The Effectiveness of Narrative Chaining on Memory Essay

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Pages: 6

Abstract: The aim of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of narrative chaining on memory. A total of 59 participants aged 10-69 years old took part in this experiment. They were chosen using convenience sampling and were split randomly into two independent groups. Participants had 30 seconds to memorise a list of words, either using maintenance rehearsal or narrative chaining to do so and then they were asked to write down as many words as possible after 2 minutes. Participants in the experimental group who used narrative chaining remembered a mean of 9.93 words out of 16 words with a mean percentage of 62% of words recalled. Participants in the control group who used maintenance rehearsal remembered a mean of 9.17 words …show more content…
Participants were randomly allocated and had an equal chance of being in both the control and experimental group.

Materials: A stopwatch was used to time participants (a 30 second time period for memorising and a 2 minute time period before recalling), a pen to take down data, paper to write the data on, as well as word lists, consent papers and a standardised research investigation script. The data and consent papers can be found in the appendix.

Procedures:
1. Participants are split into 2 groups randomly, with 2 participants in the control group and 2 participants in the experimental group (an independent-groups design was used because there are no order effects to control)
2. The participants are read standardised instructions and procedures to avoid ambiguities or variations, to minimise potential extraneous variables that would make the task inconsistent or different for different participants.
3. After the participants have understood the instructions, the first participant in the control group is shown word List A (Appendix) for a period of 30 seconds
4. After 30 seconds, the list is then taken away and the participant is asked to remember as many of the words as they could by repeating them to themselves (using maintenance rehearsal) for a