Utilization Deficiency in The Use of Spontaneous Elaboration Strategy

Abstract

This study investigated a utilization deficiency phase in the situation of children's acquiring mnemonic strategies in which children successfully execute a strategy but the strategy does not facilitate memory performance. This study examined spontaneous acquisition of elaboration strategy among 5th grade children in the learning of noun pairs for 5 sessions. Participants were tested in memory task using different list of word pairs in each session. Results showed that children increased the use of elaboration strategy significantly in 5 sessions but they did not gain benefit in recall. When the word pairs were associated, the use of elaboration strategy was significantly increased but children did not gain benefit in recall. This results were discussed in terms of utilization deficiency.