Designing a study about memory

Take what you know about research from Chapter 2, and combine it with
what you are learning about memory in Chapter 6, to produce a proposal for a study about an aspect of
memory that you find intriguing or important. Here are the steps to follow:

1. Choose a question in the area of memory that you find interesting.
   This should be something that comes from what you read in the text, or hear about in class, that intrigues you.
   This question will be the basis of the study that you design in the next steps, so it should be something that is
   fairly clear and that can be well defined. Examples that might start you thinking are:

• What is the rate at which memories are forgotten?
• Do mnemonic techniques work?
• What is the effect of stress on memory?
• Can memories be “implanted”?
• What happens to memory as we age?
• How accurate are children’s memories for traumatic events?
• How do contextual cues affect memory?
• What is the relationship between mood and memory?
• How does prolonged marijuana use affect short-term memory?
  The above are only examples; while you may use any one of them, I encourage you to come up with your own
  question if there is something you’d like to write about.

1. Create a testable hypothesis.
   Think of a hypothesis that can be tested. Remember that a hypothesis is a prediction, an educated guess. The
   first thing to do then is to read about the topic you are interested in. So, for example, if you decided that you
   are interested in what happens to memory as we age you must use at least one source other than your
   textbook to learn about this topic. You will have to cite this source in your introduction (more about this later).
   Then, using what you have read, develop a hypothesis. In the example given here, it might be something like:
   Older adults will take longer to learn a list of 15 words than will teenagers. DO NOT USE THIS SAME
   EXAMPLE FOR YOUR ASSIGNMENT…come up with your own idea.
2. Design a study.
   Think about how you would go about testing the hypothesis. You might propose a study, for example, in which
   you give a group of 18-year-olds a list of words, and a group of 80-year-olds a similar list of words, and you see
   who does better (or learns faster, or retains the information longer…it all depends on your hypothesis). You
   need to consider a variety of details here:

• Where would you get your subjects from? Would you pay them?
• What test materials would you use?
• What is the actual procedure you would put your subjects through?
• What kind of study are you describing? Is it an experiment? A correlational study? Naturalistic observation?
• How will the data you are collecting answer your question? In other words, what would a given pattern of
  results tell you?
• Is there a control group? Does there have to be?
• Who would conduct this study?

1. Write it up in a 3-4 page paper.
   Part I: Introduction
   This section should be a brief (2-3 paragraphs) introduction to the topic within memory that you have chosen,
   in which you describe the issue, what is important to know about it, what you would like to demonstrate/prove,
   and why that is interesting. This section must include reference to at least one source beyond the textbook that
   deals with your topic of interest. In this section, you should also clearly state what the hypothesis is that you
   are going to test.
   Part 2: Methodology
   This section is where you clearly describe what you will be doing to test your hypothesis. Information about
   where you would get your subjects, who they would be (age range, for example, if this is relevant), what
   materials you would use, etc. Consideration of internal validity and external validity should be discussed here.
   The key thing in this section is to describe the study that you are proposing in such a way that it is reasonably
   clear how someone could implement the study, should they want to do so. You must also clearly identify each
   of the following:
   What type of study is this? (Naturalistic observation? Correlation? Etc.)
   Identify your control group and your experimental group (IF RELEVANT)
   Identify your variables, and state (IF RELEVANT) which is the independent and which is the dependent
   variable
   Part 3: Data (hypothetical only! You are not conducting this study, just proposing it)
   In a brief paragraph, suggest what you might find, and discuss what the implications of this finding would be in
   terms of the hypothesis. You may propose alternative patterns of findings and what they might suggest if you
   feel it is relevant.
   Part 4: Ethics
   What would you want to say to a Research Ethics Board, if you were presenting this study to them for
   approval? How would you ensure that it would meet the guidelines on testing human subjects?
   Part 5: Summary Discussion
   Summarize the topic and how it relates to the proposed research in a final paragraph. Any additional thoughts
   can be included here as well.

Sample Solution