NO.

CONTENT PAGE

1.0 INTRODUCTION 2

2.0 THEORETICAL RATIONALE

2.1 STATE OF PROBLEM

2.2 OBJECTIVE

3.0 METHOD 4-6

3.1 INSTRUMENT

4.0 SUMMARY OF THE STUDY 7

5.0 RESULTS OF THE EXPERIMENT 8-12

5.1 ANALYSIS

5.2 DISCUSSION

6.0 CONCLUSION 13

7.0 IMPLICATION OF THE STUDY 14-15

7.1 RESEARCH DESIGN

7.2 POSITIVE RESULTS

7.3 SUPPORTED EXPERIMENT

7.4 SUGGESTION OF THE STUDY

8.0 REFERENCES 16

9.0 APPENDIX (JOURNAL) 17-25

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1.0 INTRODUCTION

The educational research has focused on enhancing the retrieval-based strategies that occurs
effectively when young students elementary are getting knowledge in memory. Far less
attention has been paid to the potential importance of retrieval to the process of learning.
Retrieval practice involves recreating something we have learned in the past from our memory,
and thinking about it right now. In other words, students have learned something by reading it in
a book or hearing it in a class or from a teacher, they need to bring it to mind or retrieve it.

The testing effect is the finding that long-term memory is increased when some of the
learning period is devoted to retrieving the to-be-remembered information through testing with
proper feedback. The effect is also sometimes referred to as retrieval practice, practice testing, or
test-enhanced learning. A mnemonic device is any learning technique that aids information
retention or retrieval (remembering) in the human memory. Besides, mnemonics make use of
elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and imagery as specific tools to encode any given
information in a way that allows for efficient storage and retrieval.

A mnemonic is an instructional strategy designed to help students improve their memory of

important information. Mnemonics are strategies that can be modified to fit a variety of learning
content. This method enhances memory of complex words or ideas and promotes better retention
of material to be learned. It is especially beneficial to elementary students and others who may
have difficulty with information recall.

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2.0 THEORETICAL RATIONALE / BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

In the present study, concept mapping could work as an effective technique when it was done
as a retrieval-based learning activity in college students. Therefore, author set out to investigate
about how this retrieval learning effectively works with elementary school children because most
research was in college students.

The theory assumes that where questions were displayed in a relational map format is
combined at retrieval into a compound cue that is used to access memory. If the representations
of the question maps are associated in memory, the match is greater than if they are not
associated, and this greater match facilitates the response to the target. The children then made a
series of metacognitive judgments of learning and ratings of how interesting, difficult, and
enjoyable they thought the activities.

2.1 STATE OF PROBLEM

The present work on the initial learning activities shows the students did not perform well on
any of the activities because there are several striking results. Proportion of ideas correctly
produced or recalled during initial learning and proportion correct on the final short answer
tests in Experiment 1. Regardless of the level of support in Experiment 1 provided minimal
support for recall and concept map activities.

2.2 OBJECTIVE OF STUDY

1. To examine retrieval-based strategies needs to be conducted with actual educational

materials selected directly from school curricula.

2. To scaled retrieval-based learning tasks with four learning conditions.

3. To identify retrieval activities with the potential to promote learning as well as those that
may not work well with young children.

4. To examine possible ways to bolster initial retrieval success in elementary school children.

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3.0 METHOD

Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the effects of testing. The retrieval effort
hypothesis suggests that the effort involved in retrieval provides testing benefits. This hypothesis
predicts that tests that require production of an answer would provide greater benefit.

The experimental sessions were conducted in classrooms and there are ninety-four children,
ages 911, participated in Experiment 1. The four learning conditions such as concept mapping,
free recall, cued recall, and the study only control condition were manipulated within-subjects.
During the learning phase, in all conditions the children began by studying a text for 5 min. In
the control condition, the children then moved on to other classroom activities, while in the other
conditions they completed a learning activity for approximately 20 min. In the concept mapping
condition, the experimenter gave a brief introduction to the concept mapping task, using an
example about dogs. Children were told that concepts were represented in bubbles and that those
concepts were connected to other concepts using words and phrases that described how they
related to each other. In the free recall condition, children were given a blank sheet of lined paper
and had 7.5 min to write as much of the text as they could remember, without looking back at the
text. In the cued recall condition, the children were given a sheet with sentences from the texts
that were missing words or phrases. At the end of each learning activity, the children were asked
to rate several aspects of the activity, including how well they thought they had learned the
material (a judgment of learning), how interesting they found the activity, how difficult they
found the activity, and how much fun they thought the activity was.

Experiment 2 explored the use of concept mapping as a retrieval-based learning activity and
there are one hundred and three children, ages 911, participated in Experiment 2. There were
four learning conditions (more-more, more-less, less-more, and less-less), which were
manipulated within-subjects. During the learning phase, the experimenter read the text out loud
to children while they read silently on paper, and the experimenter then answered any questions
children had about unfamiliar words or pronunciations. Children completed the first concept map
with the text in front of them and then completed the second concept map without the text.

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On average, children spent approximately 35 min completing the more support maps and
approximately 610 min completing the less support maps. After completing the second map, the
children made a series of ratings about the learning task, using the same procedure used in
Experiment 1.

Experiment 3 explored a new technique which is referring to a question mapping. In the

question map task, students completed a set of questions that were arranged in a map format.
There are eighty-nine children, ages 911, participated in Experiment 3. During the learning
phase, two learning conditions (guided retrieval vs. restudy) were manipulated within-subjects.
Children studied two texts and engaged in a guided retrieval activity with one text and restudied
the other. The first question map task lasted approximately 5 min; though children were given
extra time to finish their answers if needed. The children were then given a second identical
question map to complete without viewing the text, as a retrieval practice activity. The second
question map task lasted 23 min. In the reread condition, after the experimenter had read the
text the children were given approximately 8 min of additional time to reread and study the text.
Thus, total time was matched as closely as possible across the two conditions, within the
constraints of testing large groups of children in classroom settings.

3.1 INSTRUMENT

In the present study in experiment 1, there are four brief texts were adapted from
elementary science textbooks whereby each text covered a single topic such as Learning
More about Rocks, Surviving in the Wild, Classifying Animals, and The Earths
Changing Surface. This observation was confirmed with separate one-way ANOVAs
conducted on the verbatim and higher order question data along with four learning conditions
such as concept mapping, free recall, cued recall, and the control condition. At the end of the
learning phase, the experimenter assessed students metacognitive knowledge of the
effectiveness of these learning activities by having students make judgments of learning. The
children made their ratings on a 010 scale where 0 was the lowest rating and 10 was the
highest rating.

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 Overall, the present experiment 1 outperformed the study once condition on phase that
included verbatim, inference, and application short answer questions reflected. Verbatim
questions referred to concepts and ideas that were stated directly in the texts while inference
questions required children to make inferences about ideas that were not explicitly stated in
the text and application questions, which asked the children to apply what they had learned to
new situations. There were 8 verbatim, 3 inference, and 2 application questions.

In experiment 2, four brief texts were adapted from two of the elementary textbooks used
in Experiment 1 and texts were modified to increase text coherence and reduce the Flesch
Kincaid reading level to a 4th grade reading level. Each text covered a single topic such as
Clouds, Oceans, Storms, and Deserts. Initial maps were scored by giving one point for each
word or concept correctly filled in. The fill-in-the-blank final assessments were scored by
giving the students one point for each correct word filled in the blank space on the test.

In experiment 3, two brief texts were developed which is a modified version of the
Clouds text from Experiment 2, and another text such as Apache Indian Homes that was
adapted from a childrens website. Children studied two texts and engaged in a guided
retrieval activity with one text and restudied the other. The order of the two texts and the
order in which children performed the two learning activities were counterbalanced across
classrooms. Instead, after completing each learning activity, the children proceeded to the
criteria free recall test.

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4.0 SUMMARY

The aim of this journal is adapting retrieval practice techniques that are effective with
college students to work with elementary school children. Some authors are very explicit about
the retrieval practice because many studies have shown that retrieval enhances learning.
Actually, the author also listing hypotheses about retrieval practice could be incorporated into a
variety of existing educational activities. Therefore, three experiments reported were carried out
with children in elementary school classrooms to identify retrieval activities with the potential to
promote learning as well as those that may not work well with young children, even though the
activities are quite effective with college students. The present experiment 1 assessed when the
children were asked to freely recall the texts, they recalled very little of the material about 10%
and showed almost no improvement after rereading. In another condition, when the children
produced 20% of the ideas on their maps, even though they viewed the texts during the entire
activity. Experiments 2 and 3 explored ways to provide support during retrieval activities. In
Experiment 2, children were successful at retrieving knowledge on concept maps that were
partially completed. In Experiment 3, a question map activity, where questions were displayed in
a relational map format, was effective for guiding retrieval practice and improving learning
relative to repeated studying. The results demonstrate the importance of examining strategies that
work with college students with young children in educational settings using authentic materials.
The results also highlight the need for guided retrieval practice in young children.

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5.0 RESULTS OF THE EXPERIMENT

5.1 ANALYSIS

EXPERIMENT 1

The texts were divided into 30 idea units for scoring purposes and fee recall protocols
were scored by giving one point for each correctly recalled idea unit. In the free recall condition,
the children recalled only 7% and 9% of the idea units on the first and second recalls,
respectively. It is worth reiterating that the materials were selected directly from school
textbooks and were modified to improve coherence. Experiment 1 showed that recalled 64% and
81% of the ideas in a text, in a procedure nearly identical to the one used here with elementary
school children. The second striking observation from the data in Table 1 is that children showed
virtually no improvement in recall after 5 min of rereading the text.

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 Table 2 shows the students ratings of the learning activities and they gave the highest
JOLs in the concept mapping condition, and JOLs were lower in the two retrieval practice
conditions relative to the control condition. Even though the children were not especially
successful at completing the concept mapping task, they rated concept mapping as most
interesting and enjoyable of the four learning activities. . Looking across the two experiments,
the less support condition whereby students were much more successful at recalling ideas (77%)
than they were at producing a concept map.

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 EXPERIMENT 2

Table 3 shows performance during the initial learning activities. Initial maps were scored
by giving one point for each word or concept correctly filled in. The fill-in-the-blank final
assessments were scored by giving the students one point for each correct word filled in the
blank space on the test. There are differences between the three less-support conditions and the
more-more condition, respectively, which ranged from d = 0.120.17. The effect sizes are small,
but they hint at a general advantage of concept map activities that provided less support relative
to the condition that provided the most support and thus required the least amount of retrieval
effort.

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 EXPERIMENT 3

The question maps were scored by giving 1 point for correct responses and .5 points for
partially correct responses. Free recall protocols were scored by giving one point for each
correctly recalled idea unit. The other key result of Experiment 3 is shown in Figure 3, which
shows the proportion of ideas recalled on the criteria free recall test. Although this is a cross-
experiment comparison and there are a number of differences across the experiments. Figure 3
showed that the guided retrieval practice condition produced much better free recall performance
(40%) than the free recall conditions in Experiment 1, where fewer than 10% of ideas were
recalled even on a second recall attempt.

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5.2 DISCUSSION

The results of Experiment 1 indicated that some activities known to be feasible and
effective with college students, including free recall and concept mapping with minimal support,
were not feasible for promoting learning of educational texts with elementary school children.
Both concept mapping and free recall can be important learning tools because both activities
require learners to focus on relational and item-specific processing, and because retrieval
practice specifically requires learners to reconstruct what occurred in a prior episodic context.
Based on the data from Experiment 1, is to adapt activities so that younger learners can benefit
from practicing retrieval with educational materials.

Experiment 2 explored a possible approach to guiding retrieval practice with children by

using concept maps as retrieval activities and by manipulating the amount of support provided by
the concept maps. The results were promising and showed that students were much more
successful at retrieving concepts in these activities than they were in the activities in Experiment
1, which offered minimal support during the tasks. There was a trend suggesting that
experiencing a condition with less support, in which students completed 1314 concepts, was
more effective than experiencing only the most support, in which students completed only 4
concepts. The results of Experiment 2 suggested that concept mapping could serve as an
effective retrieval activity with children because the activity affords the opportunity to provide
retrieval support.

Experiment 3 leveraged this idea and added an additional element of support to the
concept mapping task. Experiment 3 demonstrated the efficacy of a guided retrieval procedure
using a question mapping task. Children performed well on the question mapping task under
conditions with and without the text, and the task produced a positive enhancement in free recall
performance. The results provide preliminary evidence indicating that question mapping may
serve as an effective retrieval-based learning activity. The results also suggest that, under certain
conditions, free recall of educational texts is indeed a feasible task for young children when
appropriate scaffolds are in place to guide and support childrens successful recall.

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6.0 CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the present study contributes new sights on retrieval enhanced learning
with complex and educationally-relevant materials. These findings indicate that providing
learning activities also need to be designed so that they may be implemented in classroom
settings. Thus, the present work was carried out in elementary school classrooms with
educational content selected directly from curriculum materials. Throughout this experiment,
free recall remains an important activity because it requires learners to create a relational
retrieval structure and then recover the individual ideas within that structure.

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7.0 IMPLICATION OF THE STUDY

7.1 RESEARCH DESIGN

Overall, the research design and data analysis have contributed about the
educational relevance of retrieval practice. The potential of combined approach is that
requires from the texts which are selected from the curriculum materials and modification
to improve cohesion. Even though, there is a current challenge to scale retrieval practice
activities but the experiment produced a surprising results. However, they have to
improve some implement of classroom settings and require learners to reinstate a prior
knowledge of context study. Besides, the implication of study for the young elementary
school aged children do indeed benefit from the mnemonic effect of retrieval.

7.2 POSITIVE RESULT

The authors observed that retrieval practice produced better performance using a
question mapping task. The results provide preliminary evidence indicating that question
mapping may serve as an effective retrieval-based learning activity. Other than that, this
experiment also shed some light on what kinds of activities will and will not support
successful immediate free recall in children.

Nevertheless, the elementary school years represent a critical time in childrens

development. At these ages, children are in a transitional phase in which they have
learned to read and are increasingly reading to learn. Children are now expected to
begin implementing learning strategies on their own, even though they may have
difficulties executing effective strategies but the author were success to explore about
what is the learning educational material from curricula can be used for children.
Intuitively, this research also can guide teacher on how to apply what their needs to
improve by using curriculum materials.

7.3 SUPPORTED EXPERIMENT

Furthermore, this research was supported by a grant from the Institute of

Education Sciences in the U.S. Department of Education (R305A110903) and additional
support during the writing of this article was provided by Grants from the National

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Science Foundation (DRL-1149363) and (DUE-1245476). Overall, the present results
point up the need for guided retrieval practice with elementary school children and
provide initial insights into how to structure and scaffold retrieval practice activities when
children are learning from educational texts.

7.4 SUGGESTION OF THE STUDY

In particular, they can add the extent to which the learning gains produced by
more time-consuming methods are justified by the time and resources invested in those
methods. Although, there is statistical findings suggest that the use of elaboration
strategies and not the learning time was the crucial factor influencing comprehension, it
would be theoretically and practically interesting to explore in future studies whether a
similar effect on comprehension can be obtained when the amount of words and the
learning time invested were the same for different methods.

In doing so, we could analyze if words or time are necessary consequences of

elaborative prompting or whether the effects of elaboration obtained without these costs.
Such studies advance our understanding of retrieval-based learning by demonstrating that
comprehension is significantly enhanced by engaging in constructive elaboration
processes during free recall retrieval practice, and encourage further research that
explores the pedagogical value of combining retrieval with activities that require learners
to organize and apply the materials in different ways.

There are many ways to take advantage of the testing effect, some during class
time and some outside of class time. Providing summary points during a class to
encourage students to recall and articulate key elements of the class. Lyle and Crawfords
study examined the effects of asking to students to write the main points of the days
class during the last few minutes of a class meeting, and observed a significant effect on
student recall at the end of the semester (Lyle and Crawford, 2011). Setting aside the last
few minutes of a class to ask students to recall, articulate, and organize their memory of
the content of the days class may provide significant benefits to their later memory of
these topics.

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8.0 REFERENCES

Karpicke, J. D., Blunt, J. R., Smith, M. A., & Karpicke, S. S. (2014). Journal of Applied
Research in Memory and Cognition.

Karpicke, J. D., & Blunt, J. R. (2011). Retrieval practice produces more learning than
elaborative studying with concept mapping. Science, 331(6018), 772-775.

Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger, H. L. (2007). Repeated retrieval during learning is the key to long-
term retention. Journal of Memory and Language, 57(2), 151-162.

Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning.
science, 319(5865), 966-968.

Lyle KB and Crawford NA (2011). Retrieving essential material at the end of lectures improves
performance on statistics exams. Teaching of Psychology 38, 94-97.

Mastropieri, M. A., & Scruggs, T. E. (1998). Constructing more meaningful relationships in the
classroom: Mnemonic research into practice. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 13,
138-145.

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