Trouble with Psych exam questions!

[Lulu]

Okay this is a question in QAT 2007
it's quite long so bear with me  

A group of year 12 students decided to test the effectiveness of maintenance rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal on memory tasks. To test this theory they selected 20 names out of a hat, which included the names of the 200 year 9 students who attended their college.

The 20 students were first given a list of 20 items and were told that to memorise the list they were to repeat it over and over again for 2 minutes. They were then asked to recall the items on the list 5 minutes later.

The 20 students were then given another list of 20 items and they were told to put these words into a meaningful story during the 2 minutes given. They were then asked to recall the items on the list 5 minutes later. A high score would indicate a more effective technique.

The results are as follows:
Maintanence rehearsal: mean score = 8 items recalls
Elaborative rehearsal: mean score = 13 items recalled

The problem I'm having is with the operational hypothesis.

Mine was:

"It is predicted that year 9 students who use elaborative rehearsal as a means of remembering a list of 20 items will recall more items than those who use maintanence rehearsal."

But the answers say...

"It is predicted the people who use elaborative rehearsal will recall in excess of 7 items compared to those who use maintenance rehearsal who will recall 7 items or less."

My questions:
Is it incorrect to say 'year 9 students'?
Do we have to be that specific with operationalising scores and such?

In the answers they even specifically say that 1 mark should be awarded for operationalising how many more items each will recall.

So where do they get the 7 items from? Do we just make a guess as to how many will be recalled?

[melaniej]

7 items is in reference to the capacity of short term memory.

[melaniej]

In your OH, you state the population NOT the sample, so you refer to the general population. If it had said "A group of year 12 students decided to test the effectiveness of maintenance rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal on memory tasks on year 9 students', then you would put the year 9 students into the OH.

[Lulu]

7 items is in reference to the capacity of short term memory.

Ooh...that's tricky...

Would we need to include things like that in the hypothesis?

In your OH, you state the population NOT the sample, so you refer to the general population. If it had said "A group of year 12 students decided to test the effectiveness of maintenance rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal on memory tasks on year 9 students', then you would put the year 9 students into the OH.

So since it doesn't mention anything about the population, we can just assume it's 'people'?

[melaniej]

yeah I think we can safely assume they want to generalise it to everyone.

And I doubt they would have anything that tricky on the actual exam. Actually, if they did, there would be uproar. That's quite a ridiculous question.

[psychlaw]

7 items is in reference to the capacity of short term memory.

Ooh...that's tricky...

Would we need to include things like that in the hypothesis?

In your OH, you state the population NOT the sample, so you refer to the general population. If it had said "A group of year 12 students decided to test the effectiveness of maintenance rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal on memory tasks on year 9 students', then you would put the year 9 students into the OH.

So since it doesn't mention anything about the population, we can just assume it's 'people'?

This is kind of dodgy, we wouldn't be asked to add our own knowledge to the operational hypothesis - so its kind of strange, do another one, that one sucks I didn't see any problems with your hypothesis but I would add inthe time aswell, as in "year 9 students who use elaborative rehearsal as a means of remembering a list of 20 items [over 5 minutes]"

And no, we can't assume its "people", that part is wrong, they should have wrote "it was predicted that year 9 students" rather then "it was predicted that people" because the population tested was year 9 students and they can't generalise that with the entire population of the world (because eg - as we've learnt elderly people have more difficulty memorising new material then younger people, so it can't be generalised)

[KeyMan]

I know that "Correlation" isn't covered in the current study design, however I have seen it pop up in a few trial exams numerous times. My text book doesn't cover it so can someone just give me a brief description of what it is, just in case it pops up in a multiple choice question. Thanks.

[psychlaw]

I know that "Correlation" isn't covered in the current study design, however I have seen it pop up in a few trial exams numerous times. My text book doesn't cover it so can someone just give me a brief description of what it is, just in case it pops up in a multiple choice question. Thanks.

It can't turn up in multis because if anything, it comes under research methods and research methods only appears on the short answer (multis are only memory and learning)

[melaniej]

It is in the study design, under statistical analysis of data or something.
A correlation measures the association between 2 variables. Numbers between 1 and -1 indicate the strength of the correlation.
1 being strongest positive correlation, 0 being no correlation, and -1 being the strongest negative correlation.
A correlation can be positive or negative. A positive correlation is one in which the two variables change in the same direction i.e as one increases, so does the other. e.g the more time spent studying, the greater the test score.
A negative correlation is when one increases, the other decreases. For example, the more hours spent watching television, the less time spent playing sport.

[psychlaw]

It is in the study design, under statistical analysis of data or something.
A correlation measures the association between 2 variables. Numbers between 1 and -1 indicate the strength of the correlation.
1 being strongest positive correlation, 0 being no correlation, and -1 being the strongest negative correlation.
A correlation can be positive or negative. A positive correlation is one in which the two variables change in the same direction i.e as one increases, so does the other. e.g the more time spent studying, the greater the test score.
A negative correlation is when one increases, the other decreases. For example, the more hours spent watching television, the less time spent playing sport.

are you sure? My teacher told us its no longer in the study design

[melaniej]

Maybe it's not. We had to learn it though, under research methods.

[Lulu]

Okay, thanks for the responses guys!!

Oh and I guess the population is Year 9 students since it says "selected 20 names out of a hat, which included the names of the 200 year 9 students".

It is a weird paper though...even the front cover looks really strange guess that's why i decided to leave it till last!

About the correlation stuff, it has popped up in the NEAP book I've been doing and Lisachem '07 (i think) so it might be worth knowing.

[psychlaw]

NEAP? I havn't seen any correlation stuff in NEAP 05, 06 or 07 (which are the ones relevant to the current study design)

Havn't done the Lisachem but if its only been in one exam, I'm probably going to give it a miss

[Lulu]

I'm talking about the NEAP smartstudy revision book, I might be mixing it up with another paper I've done though

[j.el-halabi]

I'm talking about the NEAP smartstudy revision book, I might be mixing it up with another paper I've done though

yeh is that neap smartstudy good? ive got it but havent had a chance todo the prac exams only the questions.. is it worth doing now?
ive still got exams and checkpoints and heaps of resources?