In-Class: One

We did an in-class experiment today: the tried-and-tested "Which is better for recalling sentences?" one. Since our classroom is sort of split into three, we had three groups. One of which, the "middle one", was the control group - this is the group that focused on understanding what the sentences were*. The other two, on opposite sides of the room, focused on visualizing the sentences and pronouncing them, respectively. This experiment was single-blind in its nature - the instructor knows what's going on, but the experiments are kept in the dark. Most of the students didn't act as if they knew what was going on, however; but, some of us, myself included, knew what to expect. The sentences were to be rated on how easy it was to understand the stated sentences, and students were later asked to recall all twenty of them. The independent variable of this experiment would certainly have to be the instructions on the papers - the three "sections" of the room had different instructions from one another - and the dependent variable was how well the students remembered the sentences based on the independent variable. The results were pretty cut-and-dry - the students that focused on the pronunciation got maybe half, at best, the scores of the other two groups. It showed that visualization of information can be a very nice little boost in learning.
* One may argue that the group that focused on pronunciation is not, in fact, an experimental group, that it is, rather, the control group. I disagree with this because not only does pronunciation play a huge part in remembering things [especially words - you don't randomly forget how to pronounce the word "orange"], but because without pronunciation, language as we know it would not exist. Someone can say a sentence and get the meaning wrong/completely misunderstand it, but in most cases, if previously exposed to the words, they will pronounce the words correctly.
I was a part of the pronunciation group, and I got the highest score. I think it was because, for me, I remembered the most ridiculous ones the easiest. Like the one about the lanky leprechaun [which doesn't even make sense!].