PSYCH 644 Week 3 Memory Processes and Models Example

Rereading the Manual Versus Testing Yourself: Memory Models and a Study Plan for Machinists Preparing for a GD&T Certification

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

PSYCH/644: Psychology of Learning and Cognition

Week 3 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The aerospace shop, its apprentices and the certification plan are composites written for a model paper; research findings come from the sources listed.

Memory research has produced some of psychology's most practical findings, yet many learners still study in ways that research shows are inefficient. This paper applies memory models and research on study strategies to a certification exam my apprentices struggled with.

The Problem

At Saguaro Precision, apprentices must pass an exam on geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, the symbolic language engineers use on drawings to specify allowable variation in a part's form, orientation and location. The standard includes fourteen geometric characteristic symbols, rules for datums, modifiers such as maximum material condition and many rules for interpreting combinations. Last spring, fourteen apprentices took the exam after a six-week evening course. Seven failed. When I asked how they studied, most said they reread the course binder and highlighted key passages, often the night before class.

How Memory Works

Memory is often described as a set of processes: encoding information, storing it and retrieving it later. The classic multi-store model distinguished sensory memory, a brief short-term store and a durable long-term store. Later models replaced the passive short-term store with working memory, an active system for holding and manipulating information.

Baddeley (2000) revised the influential working memory model, which had included a central executive that controls attention and two subsystems, a phonological loop for verbal and acoustic information and a visuospatial sketchpad for visual and spatial information. The new piece, an episodic buffer, is a small holding area where sounds, images and stored knowledge get stitched into one scene that a person can be aware of and work with. The revision helped explain how people combine verbal and visual information and draw on prior knowledge while thinking.

Interpreting a feature control frame on a drawing taxes every part of this system: apprentices must hold the symbol's meaning, the datum references and the part's geometry in mind at once. For novices, without well-organized knowledge in long-term memory, working memory overloads quickly.

Why Rereading Feels Better Than It Works

In the experiment by Roediger and Karpicke (2006), college students read brief passages about topics such as sea otters, then either read them again or wrote down everything they could recall, with no answers shown afterward. When memory was checked after just five minutes, the rereaders came out a little ahead. But on tests two days and one week later, the recall group held on to far more of the passages than the rereaders did. Asked to forecast their own memory, the rereaders were the more confident group, which turned out to be backward.

The finding explains our apprentices' choices. Rereading the binder created fluency, a feeling of familiarity that felt like learning. Retrieval felt harder and less successful in the moment, so they avoided it, but the effort of retrieval is what strengthened long-term memory.

On exam night the binder pages felt like old friends; that warm feeling did not help anyone decode a callout cold.

Spacing Study Over Time

Cepeda et al. (2006) gathered several hundred studies comparing study packed into one sitting with the same study split across days. Splitting it won for long-term memory, and the best spacing grew with how long the material had to last, so knowledge needed months later called for wider gaps. Cramming can work for a test the next morning but produces rapid forgetting afterward.

Our apprentices crammed before each class and the exam, which may have helped a little on short quizzes but left little for a cumulative exam.

Rating Study Techniques

Dunlosky et al. (2013) reviewed ten common learning techniques for their generality across learners, materials and settings. Only two of the ten, quizzing yourself and spreading sessions apart, earned the reviewers' highest rating. Three earned a middle rating, and the five favorites of most students, including the highlighter and the second read-through, earned the lowest. The review noted that the low-utility techniques are among the most popular with students.

Interference and Similar Symbols

Forgetting results not only from the passage of time but also from interference. Several geometric tolerance symbols look similar and apply to related concepts, such as position and concentricity or flatness and straightness. Apprentices who study them in blocks, one symbol at a time, may confuse them later. Interleaved practice, mixing different symbols in the same session, forces learners to discriminate among them.

Levels of Processing and Meaning

How information is encoded affects how well it is remembered. Processing material for meaning, such as asking why a tolerance is specified or how it affects whether two parts fit together, tends to produce more durable memories than processing surface features, such as the shape of a symbol. Many apprentices memorized symbol shapes from a table without connecting them to the parts they machine every day. The plan therefore ties each symbol to a real part from our shop: the flatness callout on a mounting bracket that must seal against a housing, or the position tolerance on bolt holes that must line up with an engine flange.

Encoding Specificity and the Exam Setting

Memory works best when the conditions at retrieval resemble those at encoding. Apprentices studied at home from a binder but took the exam on paper drawings under time pressure. Practicing with drawings in the same format, under timed conditions, narrows the gap between where knowledge is learned and where it must be used.

The Twelve-Week Plan

The plan combines spaced retrieval practice with feedback. Each week, apprentices receive a set of practice drawings with feature control frames to interpret, completed without the binder and then checked against an answer key with explanations. Each set mixes symbols covered that week with symbols from earlier weeks, interleaving and spacing them. Apprentices also use a deck of digital flashcards with spaced repetition scheduling. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the first fifteen minutes of shift go to pairs: each apprentice talks a partner through one drawing callout, out loud and without notes. A full practice exam is given in weeks six and eleven, with results used to target review.

Teaching Apprentices Why

Because effective strategies feel harder, apprentices may resist them. The first session will include a demonstration: apprentices study twenty symbols, half by rereading and half by self-testing, and are tested a week later, letting them see the difference in their own memories.

Supervisors will also ask apprentices to interpret one real drawing callout during each week's job briefings, adding retrieval on the shop floor to the study sessions.

Measuring Results

We will compare pass rates and scores with previous cohorts and track practice exam scores over time.

The plan's total time, about three hours a week, is less than many apprentices spent rereading, which makes the case for it easier to sell.

Limits

Much of the research used students and simple materials, while the exam involves complex technical rules and visual interpretation. Apprentices also differ in prior knowledge and time to study.

Conclusion

Memory models explain why dense technical material overloads novices, and research on retrieval practice, spacing and study techniques explains why rereading and cramming failed. A plan built on spaced, interleaved retrieval practice with feedback should help apprentices remember what they learn long enough to use it on the shop floor.

References

Baddeley, A. (2000). The episodic buffer: A new component of working memory? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(11), 417-423. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01538-2

Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354-380. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354

Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266

Roediger, H. L., III, & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249-255. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x