PSY2236: The Effect of Massed Versus Spaced Practise - Report Writing - Psychology Assignment Help

Assignment Task:

Overview (don’t need to include this in the report): 

Students completed a task in the first practical of this session where they practiced writing the alphabet upside down and inversed over a series of trials (see slides from Practical 1 on iLearn for details of the task). Tutors collected data from the task, it was collated, and is provided in raw form at the end of this document. One stream A class and one stream B class were selected to be the participants in this study. This gave us one group of 42 students (21 per class). Note that in class we added a retention trial, this does not need to be included in the methods or results of the study and can instead be raised as a point of interest in the discussion section. 

You are to write up the study as if you were the researcher who conducted it, according to APA Guidelines for research reports. You should include an abstract for your report. 

Aim: 

To compare the effect of massed versus spaced practice on the acquisition of a new skill, operationalised as performance of that skill while practicing. 

Background reading: 

Murray, S. R., & Udermann, B. E. (2003). Massed versus distributed practice: which is better. Cahperd Journal, 1, 19-22. 

Kientzle, M. J. (1946). Properties of learning curves under varied distributions of practice. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 36(3), 187. 

Lee, T. D., & Genovese, E. D. (1988). Distribution of practice in motor skill acquisition: Learning and performance effects reconsidered. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 59(4), 277-287. 

You should find some more papers to discuss through independent research. 

Hypothesis: 

Your hypothesis must be declarative (i.e. state the relationship between the IV and DV), directional (i.e. indicate if something will be “higher” or “lower”, “increase” or “decrease”), and falsifiable (i.e. we could find evidence that either supports the hypothesis or refutes it). 

Methods: 

Participants: 

• 42 undergraduate psychology students 

• Completed the task during class led by a tutor trained in conducting the task 

• We did not obtain demographic data 

Materials: 

• Worksheets, blank paper, pen/pencil, timer 

Procedure: 

• Participants were asked to practice writing the inverse alphabet 

• What did the massed practice look like? 

• What did the spaced practice look like? 

• All students completed both forms of practice, half of the students completed massed then spaced, the other half completed spaced then massed (i.e. we implemented ‘counterbalancing’ to control for a potential order effect) 

Study Design: 

• Within-subjects design 

• Independent variable: practice condition 

o 2 levels: massed vs spaced 

• Dependent variable: mean number of accurately written letters produced per practice trial 

Results: 

• Provide descriptive statistics (i.e. Mean and SD) 

• Provide the result of comparing massed vs spaced practice using a statistical test 

Discussion: 

• Was your hypothesis supported or not? 

• How does that align with previous literature? 

• What were the strengths and limitations of our study? 

• What is a future study we could do to continue our investigation into this topic? 

• What are the implications of our findings in a day-to-day sense? 

Note: In class, we discussed interesting points like the need to include a retention trial to judge whether a skill has been learned and the potential for seeing a reminiscence effect. In the study you are writing up, we cannot make statements about either of those, so what is a future study we could do in order to address those points?

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