Influences of Teachers’ Mnemonic Style on Students’ Variable Strategy Use (2008)

Undergraduate: Pooja Gupta

Faculty Advisor: Peter Ornstein
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience

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Throughout elementary school, children show vast increases in memory performance and strategies for remembering. Previous research has focused primarily on describing these changes, whereas few studies have investigated classroom contextual factors affecting changes in memory-relevant strategic behavior. The current study was embedded within a longitudinal investigation of teachers' memory-relevant language in the classroom as it relates to children's strategy use on a variety of memory tasks. The specific aim of the present study was to link teacher language to variable strategy use on a free-recall with training task over the first grade. The participants were observed to have used a variety of different strategies at each trial, including sorting, clustering, rehearsal, elaboration, category naming, covert rehearsal, and self-testing. On many trials across the first grade year, students who used more strategies recalled significantly more than those who used less strategies. Furthermore, participants in classrooms with more memory-relevant “teacher talk” exhibited more strategic behaviors than their peers in classrooms with less memory-relevant talk. This investigation provides an initial look at links between children’s multiple strategy behavior and teacher language, and suggests that studying this type of contextual factor is crucial to understanding children’s strategic development.