PPT Slide
A developmental psychologist carried out research to investigate memory performance among Grade 2 and Grade 6 students as a function of story coherence. Specifically, two stories are prepared that are identical except that events in one story occur in their natural, logical order, whereas events in the second story are randomly rearranged such that the natural order of the story is disrupted. The investigator expects that Grade 6 children will show significantly better recall scores than Grade 2 children, and that items in the logically ordered story will be significantly easier to recall than items in the logically disrupted story. In addition, the investigator expects to find a significant interaction effect whereby the effect of story coherence will be smaller for older than for younger children. A total of 20 Grade 2 and 20 Grade 6 students are randomly assigned to each of the 2 story conditions, giving a total of 80 subjects in the experiment as a whole. The children are tested individually with the stories presented auditorily using a tape recorder. Memory performance is measured by a 20-item recall test based on specific facts and events from the story.