TY - JOUR
T1 - Selfish learning
T2 - the impact of self-referential encoding on children's literacy attainment
AU - Turk, David J.
AU - Gillespie-Smith, Karri
AU - Krigolson, Olave E.
AU - Havard, Catriona
AU - Conway, Martin A.
AU - Cunningham, Sheila J.
PY - 2015/12
Y1 - 2015/12
N2 - Self-referencing (i.e., thinking about oneself during encoding) can increase attention toward to-be-encoded material, and support memory for information in adults and children. The current inquiry tested an educational application of this 'self reference effect' (SRE) on memory. A selfreferential modification of literacy tasks (vocabulary spelling) was tested in two experiments. In Experiment 1, seven- to nine-year-old children (N = 47) were asked to learn the spelling of four nonsense words by copying the vocabulary and generating sentences. Half of the children were asked to include themselves as a subject in each sentence. Results showed that children in this self-referent condition produced longer sentences and increased spelling accuracy by more than 20%, relative to those in an other-referent condition. Experiment 2 (N = 32) replicated this pattern in real-word learning. These findings demonstrate the significant potential advantages of utilizing self-referential encoding in the classroom.
AB - Self-referencing (i.e., thinking about oneself during encoding) can increase attention toward to-be-encoded material, and support memory for information in adults and children. The current inquiry tested an educational application of this 'self reference effect' (SRE) on memory. A selfreferential modification of literacy tasks (vocabulary spelling) was tested in two experiments. In Experiment 1, seven- to nine-year-old children (N = 47) were asked to learn the spelling of four nonsense words by copying the vocabulary and generating sentences. Half of the children were asked to include themselves as a subject in each sentence. Results showed that children in this self-referent condition produced longer sentences and increased spelling accuracy by more than 20%, relative to those in an other-referent condition. Experiment 2 (N = 32) replicated this pattern in real-word learning. These findings demonstrate the significant potential advantages of utilizing self-referential encoding in the classroom.
U2 - 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2015.08.001
DO - 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2015.08.001
M3 - Article
VL - 40
SP - 54
EP - 60
JO - Learning and Instruction
JF - Learning and Instruction
SN - 0959-4752
ER -
