The Role of Memory in the Acquisition and Retention of Knowledge in Science and Social Studies Units

Abstract

This article examines how students remember what they learn and how they learn. Students in science and social studies units in upper elementary classrooms were tested on unit-specific curriculum content before and after the units, and again 12 months later. They were interviewed about their memory for their learning experiences soon after the tests. The evidence suggests that students use a long-term working memory for sorting, interpreting, and integrating representations of classroom experiences as they acquire knowledge and skills from those experiences. When students recalled their classroom experiences 12 months later, details were replaced by inferences and summaries; direct recollection was replaced by deductions from related generic schemas. Memory systems for knowledge structures and activity scripts for other aspects of their classroom experiences interacted so that students' memory for what they learned was inextricably connected to how they learned. Recollection is described as a recursive problem-solving process guided by the knowledge structures and scripts that were implicated in the creation of the original representations and knowledge constructs. It is argued that the memory systems through which students process their classroom experience are acquired through the internalization of classroom activity structures.