John. M. Wilding, Bernice Andrews and Jennie Hejdenberg (2007) Relations between life difficulties, measures of working memory operation and examination performance in a student sample. Memory, 15 (1). pp. 57 - 62. ISSN 1464-0686
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This study investigated the hypothesis that the negative effect of life difficulties on examination performance in university students (Andrews and Wilding, 2004) can be explained by impairment of working memory efficiency. UK-based students were given an extensive interview covering recent life stressors and carried out a task testing working memory span, in which they had to judge the truth of arithmetic expressions while retaining words. Students reporting one or more life difficulties in the preceding 12 months recalled significantly fewer words than those reporting no such difficulties, but showed no difference in processing time on the task. However, while the number of words recalled was unrelated to examination performance at the end of the year, students who took longer on the task did significantly less well in the examination. This relation was more marked in Science than in Arts students. A number of possible explanations of this pattern of results are considered which need to be explored in further research. In particular it is suggested that the number of words retained in the working memory span task reflects current state and is reduced by intrusive thoughts provoked by current life difficulties, while time on the task reflects more permanent efficiency of the processing system and therefore efficiency in study and examinations.
This is a Published version This version's date is: 01/2007 This item is peer reviewed
https://repository.royalholloway.ac.uk/items/1154730d-d727-f69f-8c49-dcfa80199b71/1/
Deposited by Al Dean (ZSRA118) on 01-Mar-2010 in Royal Holloway Research Online.Last modified on 07-Jan-2011
(C) 2007 Taylor & Francis, whose permission to mount this version for private study and research is acknowledged. The repository version is the author's final draft.
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