Sebastián and Hernández-Gil

Question 1

What did Sebastián and Hernández-Gil study look at?

Answer 1

There study looked at digit span in people of different ages

Question 2

What does digit span refer to?

Answer 2

Refers to memory of numbers without rehearsal

Question 3

How is digit span tested?

Answer 3

Tested by reading a sequence of numbers to someone and gradually increasing the sequence by one number each time

Question 4

What did Sebastián and Hernández-Gil want to investigate?

Answer 4

Wanted to investigate the development of the phonological loop in children between ages 5 and 17 by evaluating the verbal digit span

Question 5

What did Sebastián and Hernández-Gil want to compare their results to?

Answer 5

Wanted to compare the results of this study to those previously obtained using the same task in adults, aged people and those with dementia

Question 6

In the first part of Sebastián and Hernández-Gil study how many participants were tested and what data was gathered?

Answer 6

570 voluntary participants were tested and primary data was gathered

Question 7

Where were the participants from Sebastián and Hernández-Gil study selected from?

Answer 7

Selected from public and private pre-schools, primary schools and secondary schools of the community of Madrid

Question 8

What did the sample of Sebastián and Hernández-Gil study reflect?

Answer 8

Reflected thirteen years of the Spanish education system from pre school (age 5) to secondary school year 6 (age 17)

Question 9

In total how many males and females were tested in Sebastián and Hernández-Gil study?

Answer 9

In total 272 males and 298 females were tested

Question 10

What controls did Sebastián and Hernández-Gil have?

Answer 10

None of the participants had repeated any year

None had hearing impairments or difficulties in reading or writing

All were born in Spain

Question 11

What did the digit span in Sebastián and Hernández-Gil study consist of?

Answer 11

Consisted of random sequences of digits read aloud by the experimenters at a rate of one per second

An item was added gradually to increase the sequence of the digits

Question 12

How was an individuals digit span in Sebastián and Hernández-Gil study determined?

Answer 12

Digit span was taken as the maximum length at which participants could recall at least two out of three with no errors

Question 13

What did Sebastián and Hernández-Gil find out about digit span and age?

Answer 13

Digit span increased with age

Mean digit span for 5 year olds - 3.76

6 year olds - 4.16

9 year olds - 5.0

17 year olds 5.91

Question 14

What did the second part of Sebastián and Hernández-Gil study use data from?

Answer 14

Used data from the researchers previous study in 2010 where data was gathered about digit span in 25 elderly people without impairment, 25 people with Alzheimers and 9 people with front-temporal dementia

Question 15

What did the comparison of the primary data and secondary data in Sebastián and Hernández-Gil study show?

Answer 15

Elderly people (mean age 72) had a higher mean digit span of 4.44 than 5 year olds (3.76) and 6 year olds (4.16) but didn’t differ significantly from other year groups

Alzheimers mean digit span of 4.20 was also higher than that of 5 year olds but didn’t differ significantly from other year groups

Question 16

What did the results of Sebastián and Hernández-Gil study indicate about digit span?

Answer 16

Indicated that digit span increases until age 17 as opposed to Anglo Saxon data where it is established that this span reachers a peak by age 15

Question 17

What are the strengths of Sebastián and Hernández-Gil?

Answer 17

Reliable

Careful controls

Large sample size

Question 18

What are the weaknesses of Sebastián and Hernández-Gil?

Answer 18

Artificial task - low validity

May be unrepresentative

Question 19

What is reliability as strength of Sebastián and Hernández-Gil?

Answer 19

They compared their data from the Spanish population with English studies of digit span and the findings from their data and the English data all show a similar pattern in development

Question 20

Why are careful controls a strength of Sebastián and Hernández-Gil?

Answer 20

Careful controls were employed e.g. standardised procedure. Such controls increase internal validity and allow cause and effect statements to be made

Question 21

Why is a large sample size a strength of Sebastián and Hernández-Gil?

Answer 21

A large sample size was tested, allowing the findings to be considered reliable and generalisable to the Spanish population as a whole.
The sample size allowed comparisons to be made across different cultures

Question 22

Why is artificial tasks a weakness of Sebastián and Hernández-Gil?

Answer 22

Digit span task may be viewed as artificial test of memory which therefore questions whether or not digit span experiments reflect everyday use of verbal memory and consequently, lowered the validity of the findings

Question 23

Why is the fact that the sample may be unrepresentative a weakness of Sebastián and Hernández-Gil?

Answer 23

Only Spanish speakers were used in the sample and therefore the findings may be limited in terms of how representative they are of other children from different cultures