An Effective Project for Teaching Repeated-Measures Designs

A project was developed to introduce the core principles of repeated-measures designs. Using the levels of processing approach to memory, students are prompted to engage in either shallow, moderate, or deep processing of 54 common nouns. An unexpected recall task then measures the number of words remembered in each condition. Data from 293 students from two universities across 16 years indicate that the exercise reliably produces significant differences across conditions. This exercise employs several methodological techniques that are used as a basis for class discussion such as counterbalancing, randomized-blocks designs, reduction of carryover and specific-item effects, and elimination of experimenter expectancy effects. In short, most of the design considerations that would be required of a repeated measures approach are represented, and students can identify their purposes and effects from having participated in the demonstration.