Study organization, recall organization, and free recall in reflective and impulsive children

Relationship between measures of children's study organization, recall organization and free-recall proficiency were investigated. First- and fourth-graders (total N = 94 boys and girls) having reflective and impulsive conceptual tempos performed a sorting-recall task. Although older and reflective children showed high levels of recall and clustering in recall, age and conceptual tempo differences were reduced substantially when recall and clustering means were adjusted for variation in the deliberateness and ease with which Ss derived sorting organizations for to-be-recalled stimuli at study. The results were discussed in reference to study-deficiency and retrieval-deficiency hypotheses of age differences and individual differences in children's post-sort recall performance.