Lynne Baker-Ward

A Longitudinal Study of Engineering Student Performance and Retention

A cohort of chemical engineering students has been taught in an experimental sequence of five chemical engineering courses, beginning with the introductory course in the Fall 1990 semester. Differences in academic performance have been observed between students from rural and small town backgrounds (“rural students,” N=55) and students from urban and suburban backgrounds (“urban students,” N=65), with the urban students doing better on almost every measure investigated. In the introductory course, 80% of the urban students and 55% of the rural students passed with a grade of C or better, with average grades of 2.63 for the urban students and 1.80 for the rural students (A=4.0). The urban group continued to earn higher grades in subsequent chemical engineering courses. After four years, 79% of the urban students and 64% of the rural students had graduated or were still enrolled in chemical engineering; the others had either transferred out of engineering or were no longer attending the university. This paper presents data on the students’ home and school backgrounds and speculates on possible causes of observed performance differences between the two populations.

Coherence of Personal Narratives Across the Lifespan: A Multidimensional Model and Coding Method

Personal narratives are integral to autobiographical memory and to identity, with coherent personal narratives being linked to positive developmental outcomes across the lifespan. In this article, we review the theoretical and empirical literature that sets the stage for a new lifespan model of personal narrative coherence. This new model integrates context, chronology, and theme as essential dimensions of personal narrative coherence, each of which relies upon different developmental achievements and has a different developmental trajectory across the lifespan. A multidimensional method of coding narrative coherence (the Narrative Coherence Coding Scheme) was derived from the model and is described here. The utility of this approach is demonstrated by its application to 498 narratives that were collected in six laboratories from participants ranging in age from 3 years old to adulthood. The value of the model is illustrated further by a discussion of its potential to guide future research on the developmental foundations of narrative coherence and on the benefits of personal narrative coherence for different aspects of psychological functioning.

The Search for Meaning: Developmental Perspectives on Internal State Language in Autobiographical Memory

Much of the history of psychological research on human memory has been a search for accuracy. How does individual recall match to some objective external record of what occurred? Stemming from an Ebbinghaus tradition (1885), this body of work has provided a great many answers to enduring questions about human memory. An equally fundamental issue concerning memory is the search for meaning. Whereas Bartlett (1932) is best remembered for his contributions about the reconstructive nature of memory, less attention has been paid to his quest for the way in which individuals strive to make sense of their worlds. With the increasing interest in autobiographical memory over the past 2 decades (e.g., Conway, 1990; Rubin, 1996), the question of meaning making has reemerged (Bruner, 1990; Fivush, 1993a; Neisser, 1982; Nelson, 2003). The search for meaning is especially relevant for memories of stressful and traumatic events. In these cases, the individual must try to make sense of what may seem senseless. In this special issue of Journal of Cognition and Development, we bring together a group of research studies that are grappling with this question developmentally: How do children make meaning of their real-world emotional experiences? And how might this process differ as a function of age, gender, social context, and culture? We must emphasize that we do not view the search for accuracy and the search for meaning as antagonistic or even mutually exclusive. Accuracy and meaning are JOURNAL OF COGNITION AND DEVELOPMENT, 6(4), 455–462 Copyright

Children's knowledge, expectation, and long‐term retention

To examine the influence of prior knowledge on childrens immediate and delayed recall of the details of a physical examination, 4- and 6-year-olds received a specially constructed check-up that included some typical, expected medical features (e.g. listening to the heart), while omitting others, and incorporated several atypical, unexpected procedures (e.g. measuring head circumference). Using a combination of open-ended and more specific probes, the children were assessed for their recall of expected and unexpected features that had been included in or omitted from the examination. Expectation based on prior knowledge affected three aspects of performance. First, correct recall of typical features that had been experienced exceeded that of unexpected features. Second, after a 12-week delay, spontaneous incorrect recall of expected-but-omitted features was considerable, with 42% of 4-year-olds and 72% of 6-year-olds making at least one intrusion, and essentially zero for atypical procedures that were unexpected and omitted. Third, when questioned directly about medical procedures not included in the examination, correct denials were high for atypical features, but at chance levels for those that were expected. The positive and negative influences of knowledge raise questions about childrens abilities to differentiate clearly between experience and expectation and have implications for understanding their testimony.

Children's memory for medical experiences: implications for testimony

Because medical procedures involve bodily contact and may evoke discomfort or pain, they are in some ways analogous to instances of child abuse. As such, the study of childrens memory for medical experiences provides information that is relevant for an understanding of their abilities to provide accurate eyewitness testimony. This article summarizes the results of a number of studies that have explored childrens long-term retention of details of routine physical examinations as well as other less familiar and more stressful medical procedures. The goal of this work has been to chart age differences in the retention and forgetting of pediatric check-ups and to examine some of the variables that affect childrens memory for the details of medical procedures. The results of this research program are discussed in the context of four general themes about the flow of information within the memory system.

The Influence of Prior Knowledge and Repeated Questioning on Children's Long-Term Retention of the Details of a Pediatric Examination

Childrens recall of the details of pediatric examinations was examined over the course of a 6-month interval. Although the 83 4- to 7-year-old participants reported a substantial amount of information at each assessment, performance declined over time, dropping sharply over the course of 3 months but then remaining constant out to the final interview at 6 months. As expected, older children provided more total information than younger children did and reported a greater proportion of the event components in response to general rather than specific questions. However, comparable patterns of remembering and forgetting over time were observed at each age level. In addition, no effects of repeated questioning--in the form of an interview at 3 months for half of the children--were observed on performance at the 6-month assessment. Moreover, childrens prior knowledge about routine doctor visits was assessed before the checkup for half of the participants at each age and was associated with initial but not delayed recall. Although knowledge increased with age as expected, it nonetheless affected recall over and above the influence of age.

Children's Testimony: A Review of Research on Memory for Past Experiences

This review of childrens testimony focuses on research related to memory for past experiences. The aspects of the memory system that are involved in testimony are discussed and the development of autobiographical memory is examined. Relevant research findings are summarized in the context of an information-processing model of memory and the implications of this work for clinical practice are outlined. We conclude that (1) under certain conditions, even very young children can remember and report past experiences with some accuracy over very long periods of time; (2) substantial and significant developmental differences have been demonstrated in childrens abilities to provide eyewitness testimony; (3) children can be influenced in a variety of ways to provide complete and elaborated reports of events that never occurred; and (4) even experts cannot always tell the difference between true and false reports.

Brief report: making experience personal: internal states language in the memory narratives of children with and without Asperger's disorder.

The development of the personal past is complex, requiring the operation of multiple components of cognitive and social functioning. Because many of these components are affected by autism spectrum disorders, it is likely that autobiographical memory in children with Asperger’s Disorder (AD) will be impaired. We predicted that the memory narratives of children with AD, in comparison to typically-developing peers, would reflect less personal interpretation as evidenced by internal states language. Thirty children with AD and 20 typically-developing children aged 6–14 reported their earliest memories and two emotional experiences (one positive and one negative). Consistent with our predictions, children with AD included fewer emotional, cognitive, and perceptual terms than the comparison sample.

Predicting which childhood memories persist: Contributions of memory characteristics

This investigation identified memory-level predictors of the survivability of 4- to 13-year-old childrens earliest recollections over a 2-year period. Data previously reported by Peterson, Warren, and Short (2011) were coded for inclusion of emotion terms and thematic, chronological, and contextual narrative coherence. In addition, the uniqueness and content of the reported events were classified, and the presence or absence of event reminders was recorded. The use of logistic multilevel modeling indicated that emotion and each dimension of coherence added to the prediction of a memorys survivability over and above age-related variance. In contrast, event uniqueness, content category, reminders, and word count were not associated with retention. The findings help explain why particular early memories endure over time.

Children’s Memory for Salient Events: Implications for Testimony

The alarming increase in reports of the sexual abuse of young children has prompted a growing concern about children’s abilities to provide accurate testimony in legal proceedings. Although research in this area is burgeoning (see, e.g., Ceci, Ross, & Toglia, 1987a, 1987b; Ceci, Toglia, & Ross, 1987; Goodman, 1984), much remains to be learned about young children’s abilities to provide factual accounts of personally experienced events. Undoubtedly, many factors influence the quality of children’s reports, but it is certainly the case that children cannot provide accurate testimony about events that cannot be remembered. Accordingly, the work presented here is based on the fundamental assumption that the accuracy of children’s testimony depends to a considerable extent upon their abilities to remember events over time. Indeed, we conceptualize the interview and testimony process as an attempt to help children recall situations in which they were participants or events that they observed (see also Brainerd & Ornstein, 1991; Ornstein, 1991; Ornstein, Larus, & Clubb, in press).