A Study to Remember:

The Effect of Depth of Processing and Rehearsal on Immediate and Delayed Recall

Paulene Meyers, RHS ‘06

The purpose of the current study was to determine the effect of depth of processing and rehearsal on immediate and delayed recall of vocabulary. It was hypothesized that for both immediate and delayed recall, deeper processing techniques would produce better results than a shallow processing technique (flashcards), and that self-reference would be more effective than other-reference. It was also hypothesized that rehearsal would improve immediate and delayed recall. One hundred and seventy-three eighth grade students were assigned to a rehearsal and processing condition. Students were given 16 words to learn using their assigned methodology and were tested immediately and one day after. A repeated measures ANOVA demonstrated that immediate recall scores were higher than delayed recall scores (p<.05). A significant interaction was found between test and processing level (p<.001). On the immediate recall quiz, students in the self-reference condition performed best, and students in the shallow processing condition performed worst. However, on the delayed recall quiz, the three groups’ scores were statistically equivalent. Surprisingly, rehearsal had no significant impact on students’ performance on either test.