Developmental differences in the acquisition and maintenance of an organizational strategy: Evidence for the utilization deficiency hypothesis

Abstract

Kindergartners (6-year-olds), third graders (9-uear-olds), and eighth graders (13-year-olds) received five free-recall trials using different lists with different categories over trials. Levels of recall and clustering increased with age. Although both third and eighth graders demonstrated the use of an organizational strategy, this led to increased performance only for the eighth graders. These results and age differences in the patterns of changes in recall and clustering over trials suggested that the third-grade children demonstrated a utilization deficiency, a transitional phase in strategy development, when spontaneous production of a strategy results in little or no benefit in performance.