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The Development of Organizational Strategies in Children: Evidence from a Microgenetic Longitudinal Study

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Abstract

The authors examined memory on a sort-recall task in children 8 to 12 years of age. Children were first classified as either strategic or nonstrategic on a sort-recall pretest and then participated in an 11-week microgenetic study involving nine sessions. Strategy use was assessed on each trial. Consistent with past longitudinal research, changes from nonstrategic to strategic behavior occurred suddenly rather than gradually. Once children began using organizational strategies, their recall performance improved immediately. Deliberate strategy use was clearly reflected by sorting behavior during encoding but not in clustering during recall. Conclusions about whether there are children with utilization deficiencies are thus affected by how the concept is defined and whether sorting or clustering is taken as the indicator of spontaneous strategy use.

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    This research was supported by a grant from the German Research Foundation (SCHN 315/9-1) to the second author.

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    Address correspondence and reprint requests to Wolfgang Schneider, Department of Psychology, University of Würzburg, Wittelsbacherplatz 1, D-97074 Würzburg, Germany. E-mail: [email protected].

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