The Effects of Instruction and Spatial Consistency on Children's Free Recall.

This research studied the effects of instructions on children's recall in a free recall learning task. Also investigated were developmental trends, including expected superiority of older children in recall and spontaneous formation of stable organizational groupings. A third area of study concerned the possibility that younger children benefit more than older children from induced organizational strategies. Subjects were 48 male and female public school students from the second and fifth grades. The children were randomly assigned to the experimental conditions which varied with the two different sets of instructions regarding categorization and recall. Results are presented for recall scores on the first recall test, recall over trials, subjective organization, and sorting consistency. The results indicate that instructions to maintain spatially consistent categories and higher recall over trials were effective in producing more consistent categories and higher recall over trials for children of seven and ten years. A positive relationship between consistency in sorting, recall, and number of intertrial repetitions is suggested by the results and while instructions to maintain consistent categories seem to be an important factor, the possibility that the presence of a spatial cue also influenced obtained results cannot be overlooked. (Author/SDH)