Jennifer Stiegler-Balfour and Elizabeth Whitmore present at the American Psychological Association Convention in Toronto

Jennifer Stiegler-Balfour, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, and graduate Elizabeth Whitmore, B.S. (Medical Biology major/Psychology Minor, ’14) recently presented research findings at the American Psychological Association Convention in Toronto, Canada.

The presentation, titled “Using experiential learning experiences to ensure the transfer of knowledge,” explored which type of generative processing is most beneficial for learning. For the study, participants completed experiential learning assignments and lab reports or reviewed standardized templates during the experiment. Learning was assessed using free recall methods and both the reports and assessments were scored based on factual information, organization, level of elaboration, applied examples and self-reference.

According to the self-reference effect, relating information to the self improves free recall as compared to semantic encoding alone. Previous research has suggested that this finding points to the self as being one of the most highly elaborate structures in memory. Therefore, self-reference yields a more elaborate memory trace than maintenance rehearsal. The findings of the current study suggest that the incorporation of self-reference in writing assignments may present opportunities to improve long-term retention of material and information.