Organization, Breadth of Categorization and Free-Recall Learning in Children.

MF-$0.75 HC-$1.50 PLUS IOSTAGE Classification; *Educational Research; Grade 5; Learning; *Learning Processes; Learning Theories; *Recall (Psychological) ThE! primary objective of this study was to determine the existence of a relationship between free-recall learning and breadth of categorization, an independent measure of conceptual organization. The relationship between breadth of categorization and more conventional measures of organization was also investigated. Two free-recall tasks (categorized and noncategorized) and two measures of breadth of categorization (band-izidth and equivalence range) were administered to 144 fifth grade subjects. The free-recall tasks consisted of lists of 30 high frequency words. One list was composed of six conceptual categories; the other list consisted of 30 unrelated words randomly selected fro-J) the 1,000 most frequent wprds in the English language. The Category Width Test was administered two days after the learning of the free-recall lists. Relationships were found between the average size of the groupings and the number of objects left ungrouped on the equivalence range task and the noncategorized free-recall task, whereas only the number of objects left ungrouped on the equivalence range task was found to be related to categorized free-recall. Band-width was related to observed-expected repetitions and the adjusted ratio of clustering. (WR) a. THIS DOCUMENT TIAS arFN REPRO U S DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. DUCE. 0 F Y.A. C.TLY AS RECEIVE D FROM EDUCATION& WELFARE 111E PERSON OR ORGANIZA I iON ORIGIN ACING 1 POIN TS Of yirN OR OPINIONS NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION STA TIC) Do NoT NrCESSARIL y HETTRE SENT Of T ICIAL NATIONAL ! NST [TUTU 01 EDUCATION PO. ,I 1 ION OR POLICY Organization, Breadth of Categorization and Free-Recall Learning in Children' Barbara Strassberg-Rosenberg and Thomas J. Shuell State University of New York at Buffalo ei f>l 17 . 10 The primary objective of the present study Tas to ascertain the existence of a relationship beteen free-recall learning and breadth of categorization, an independent measure of conceptual organization. The relationship between breadth of categorization and more conventional measures of organization [observed expected repetitions (0-E) and the Adjusted Ratio of Clustering (ARC)] was also investigated. Two free-recall tasks (categorized and noncategorized) and two measures of breadth of categorization (band-width and equivalence range) were administered to the 144 fifth-grade subjects. Relationships were found between the average size of the groupings and the number of objects left ungrouped on the equivalence range task and the noncategorized free-recall task, whereas only the number of objects left ungrouped on the equivalence range task was found to be related to categorized free-recall. Band-width was found to be related to the O-E and ARC clustering measures. A post hoc analysis revealed that order of presentation (categorized or noncategorized list first) influenced free-recall performance on the categorized list only. It is suggested that this "order effect" be the subject of future experimentation. 1. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, Illinois, April, 1974. Organization, Breadth of Categorization and Free-Recall Learning in Children' Barbara Strassberg-Rosenberg and Thomas J. Shuell State University of New York at Buffalo The study of organizational processes in children has been approached from several rather different perspectives, and unfortunately, there have been very few attempts to integrate, or even compare, the data produced by the various approaches. For example, the role of organization in free-recall learning has been the subject of considerable experimentation and theorizing within the context of the free-recall task itself (e.g., Shuell, 1969; Tulving & Donaldson, 1972), but there have been few attempts to relate free-recall performance to measures of organization which are independent of the learning task (Shuell, 1969). One approach to the study of organizational processes in which the measures of organization are independent of any learning task is the research concerned with breadth of categorization as measured by band-width and equivalence range (e.g., Wallach & Kogan, 1966). This research has been concerned with investigating the extent to which individuals normally group objects into conceptual categories, the size of these self-created groupings, and the range a person tends to use for generalizing within a given category while still conceiving it as the same concept. These types of processes appear to be rather similar to the ones operating in free-recall learning (Shuell, 1969; Tulving, 1968). 1. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, Illinois, April, 1974.