Experiment 2

These brilliant psychologists weren't done yet. They conducted a second experiment that also considered two types of information structures:

1. Enumeration structures: These refer to texts that describe a list of concepts or items.

2. Sequence structures: These refer to texts that describe an ordered series of events.

 

There was a total of 120 participants as they studied either with concept mapping or retrieval practice. Similar to Experiment 1, they were brought back to the lab after a week for testing. However this time, there were two forms of testing: 1. Short answer: This test type would closely mimic the retrieval practice study method.

2. Concept map: This test type would closely mimic the concept map study method.

 

They added this element to the study design to mitigate the potential influence of the similarities between the retrieval practice and the testing scenario in Experiment 1. The aim was to ensure that the observed results were not solely attributed to these similarities.

 

In theory, if the retrieval practice was indeed superior to the concept mapping as a study method, then there should be similar results with the concept map tests. That is precisely what they saw.

 

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