THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CHUNKING METHODS FOR ENHANCING SHORT-TERM MEMORY OF TEXTUAL INFORMATION

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Piwat Suppawittaya, Pratchayapong Yasri

Abstract

The effectiveness of students’ memorization of textual information was investigated in this study with 50 high school students. The information was presented to the participants in three different types: 10 distinct alphabets, 10 distinct numbers, and a combination of 5 distinct alphabets and 5 distinct numbers. This information was divided into three different chunking methods: One-Chunk where the whole information was told all at once, Two-Chunks where the information was divided into 5 and 5, and Three-Chunks where the information was delivered in 3-3-4, 4-3-3, and 3-4-3 fashions. The statistical results revealed that a single type of information (either all alphabets or all numbers) was found to be easier to recall than the combined information. Furthermore, dividing the information into two or three chunks was found to enhance human memorization more significantly. In addition, the study showed that when a combined type of information was shown, grouping the information into two chunks was more effective to enhance short-term memory than providing it in one chunk. Educational implications can be drawn from this study that in order to assist students to memorize and retain learning materials more effectively, it is essential to help classify them into 2-3 groups when being delivered. Also, learning should emphasize more on how to help students learn to take in information more effectively by themselves through the use of tree thinking, binary thinking, and computational thinking.

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