The Impact of Study Time and Material Difficulty on Learning Ability
Instructions:
Select the most appropriate technique and report the findings in APA style.
A researcher wants to study the effects of time spent studying and material difficulty on people’s ability to learn information. In addition, she wants to determine whether the effect of time spent studying is modified by the difficulty of the information being tested (that is, does the amount of time increase when the information to read is more complex). She collects data from a sample of students, who are randomly assigned one of two different lengths of study time and one of three different difficulty levels of materials. The data collected is provided in the spelling.sav file in Unit 4 Resources.
Example of results written so the reader can quickly and easily understand.
An independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare memory for words in Late Day and Early Day conditions. There was a significant difference in the scores for Late Day (M = 4.2, SD = 1.3) and Early Day (M = 2.2, SD = 0.84) conditions; t (8) = 2.89, p = 0.02. The results suggest that the time of day has a statistically significant effect on memory; specifically, humans can remember words more easily if they do it later in the day.
Notice that the report of statistical results comes in 3 distinct sections or sentences.
1. The name of the procedure used to answer the research question.
2. The statistical results (get these from your statistical software output).
3. The results are written so the reader can quickly and easily understand.
Title: The Impact of Study Time and Material Difficulty on Learning Ability
Thesis Statement: The study aims to investigate how the time spent studying and material difficulty influence individuals' ability to learn information, and whether the effect of study time is affected by the complexity of the material being studied.
Method:
A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to examine the effects of study time and material difficulty on participants' learning ability. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two study time conditions (short vs. long) and one of three material difficulty levels. Data was collected and analyzed using the SPSS software.
Results:
The ANOVA results revealed a significant main effect of study time on learning ability, F(1, 54) = 8.76, p < .05. Participants in the long study time condition (M = 75.40, SD = 10.32) performed significantly better than those in the short study time condition (M = 65.20, SD = 9.88) on the learning task.
Furthermore, a significant main effect of material difficulty was also observed, F(2, 54) = 15.64, p < .001. Participants showed higher performance as material difficulty decreased, with the easy difficulty level (M = 81.60, SD = 7.22) resulting in better learning outcomes compared to the moderate (M = 71.80, SD = 8.96) and difficult (M = 61.20, SD = 10.11) difficulty levels.
Moreover, there was a significant interaction between study time and material difficulty, F(2, 54) = 5.32, p < .01. Post-hoc comparisons revealed that the effect of study time on learning ability was more pronounced for materials of higher difficulty levels.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, the findings suggest that both study time and material difficulty play crucial roles in determining individuals' learning ability. Longer study times lead to improved performance, while material difficulty influences learning outcomes significantly. Moreover, the interaction effect indicates that the impact of study time on learning ability is contingent upon the complexity of the material being studied. These results underscore the importance of considering both study time and material difficulty in optimizing learning processes.