A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Queen Margaret University

While 30 minutes was allocated for ‘independent learning’, P1 only used 10
minutes for each training session. During this time she played the pre-recorded
audio cassette and looked at the written and visual information that gave details
of the new vocabulary. She also practised completing the assessments (see
section 4.3.2.3). It was noted that it took P1 twice as long to recall the
information from long-term memory for the one month delayed recall (40
minutes) than the initial delayed recall (20 minutes) (see Table 4.5). This
indicated that although P1 still had memory traces for the new vocabulary it was
not as readily accessible to her following this one month delay.
4.4.4 Methodological issues
A number of methodological issues arose over the course of pilot study one.
They were mainly in relation to the procedure and to the content of the stimuli in
the training and assessment sessions. The issues will now be discussed under
their relevant headings and include the presentation of the stimuli, addition and
amendments of materials and the consolidation of learning.
4.4.4.1 Presentation of stimuli
The presentation of the stimuli in pilot study one was less smooth than desired
therefore this was re-evaluated and amended for later studies. Instead of
presenting the picture, name, skill, habitat and food for each creature as
separate individual items, all stimuli for each creature were displayed on a single
A4 sheet (see Appendix 4.8). Each stimulus was to be revealed at the
appropriate moment making the presentation smoother and less prone to
possible error. It was also decided to audio record all participants’ responses to
allow for more naturalistic researcher/ participant interaction. When presenting
the stimuli for word-picture matching tasks during the delayed recall
assessment, 20 items was deemed too many for participants to choose from. A
choice of five items was considered an adequate number. It was decided to
chunk all words that were originally presented together during the training
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