EXPERIMENT NO.

1
INTRODUCTION TO EXPERIMENT

I. ABSTRACT

The study aims to examined if trials affect the estimated and

achieved scores of a participant in writing the alphabets backward.
The dependent variables are the trials while the independent
variables are the estimated and achieved scores of the participant.
The materials are five strips of paper and a stopwatch. The
participant is 17 years old (has parental consent) female, an ABM
student in Tagudin National Highschool, and doesn't have any
experience being a participant in any experiments. The procedure is
that the experimenter instructs the participant to write the alphabet
backward. There will be 5 trials of 30 seconds each with a one-
minute rest between trials. After the first trial, the participant is
asked to estimate the number expected in the second trial. The same
step is followed for the third, fourth, and fifth trials. Results found
out that trials affect the estimated and achieved scores of a
participant. Other than that, the participant cannot completely write
the alphabets backward. The participant should recall the alphabet
now and then. And if possible, try challenging their capability like
try using recency effect on remembering things in sequence and
don't be pressure in allotted time.
II. INTRODUCTION

Alphabets are 26 standardized letters that are used to form a

word or a sentence and it was divided by 5 vowels and 21
consonants. According to English Mirror, a vowel is a speech sound
made by allowing the breath to flow out of the mouth, without losing
any part of the mouth or throat. On the other hand, a consonant is
a speech sound made by partially or completely blocking the flow of
air through the mouth. When we are still kids, alphabets were one
of the first things that our parents taught us alongside numbers. It
becomes a requirement for children to know alphabets when they
were beginning to learn for preparation for going to school. the
sound of the alphabet to associating objects that start from that
alphabet to memorizing the sequence of the alphabet that can also
be accompanied by a song to writing the correct sequence of the
alphabet. With this practice and development, the kids can now
start writing their full names and already achieve their reading and
writing skills in their house.

Memory is the term given to the structures and processes

involved in the storage and subsequent retrieval of information. For
psychologists, the term memory covers three important aspects of
information processing. The first stage is the memory encoding,
wherein the information comes into our memory system (from
sensory input), that needs to be changed into a form that the system
can cope with, so that it can be ready for the second stage which is
a memory storing which concern for how long the memory lasts for
(duration), how much can be stored at any time (capacity) and what
kind of information is held. And the last stage is memory retrieval
which refers to getting information out of storage (Mcleod, 2013).

There are two main types of memory retrieval: recall and

recognition. I recall, the information must be retrieved from
memories. In recognition, the presentation of a familiar outside
stimulus provides a cue that the information has been seen before.
A cue might be an object or a scene—any stimulus that reminds a
person of something related. Recall may be assisted when retrieval
cues are presented that enable the subject to quickly access the
information in memory. There are also three main types of recall
studied in psychology. First is serial recall, wherein people tend to
recall items or events in the order in which they occurred. When
recalling serial items presented as a list, two effects tend to surface:
the primacy effect when a participant remembers words from the
beginning of a list better than the words from the middle or end and
the recency effect and recency effect which occurs when a
participant remembers words from the end of a list more easily.
Second, to the list is the free recall wherein-person recalls many
items but can recall them in any order. And lastly the cued recall, a
person is given a list to remember and is then given cues during the
testing phase to aid in the retrieval of memories. The stronger the
link between the cue and the testing word, the better the participant
will recall the words (Lumen Learning).

A neuroimaging study investigates the dispute between dual-

store and single-store models of the serial position curve. Dual-store
models assume that retrieval from late positions is dependent on
short-term memory (STM), whereas retrieval from early positions is
dependent on long-term memory (LTM). Single-store models,
however, assume that retrieval processes for early and late items are
similar, but that early items are more difficult to discriminate than
late items. The study used functional magnetic resonance imaging
to examine this questioning ten young adults. And it showed in the
research the recognition of the final two items in a 12 item list was
accompanied by higher inferior parietal activation, while recognition
of the two earliest items was accompanied by increased activation of
the left medial temporal lobe and frontal areas including the bilateral
inferior frontal gyri (BA, 45 and 47) and bilateral middle frontal gyri
(BA 8 and 9). Recognition of the most recent items also was faster
and more accurate than recognition of the first two items (Talmi et
al., 2005).
 An experiment conducted by Mark Pio (2014), which has the
same procedure found out that his participant has increased
achieved scores in trials 2, 4, and 5 and a decreased achieved score
in the 3rd trial. He also found out that his participant successfully
writes the alphabet backward completely within 30 seconds.
III. METHOD

A. Problem or Objective

Trials affect the estimated and achieved scores of a

participant in writing the alphabets backward.

B. Materials

• Five strips of paper

• Stopwatch

C. Design and Procedure

1. The experimenter asked the consent of the participant

parents.
2. When the parent gave their consent, the experimenter
invited the participants to participates in the
experiment.
3. The experimenter explained the nature of the
experiment to the participant
4. The experimenter let the participant signed the
informed consent
5. The experimenter instructs the participant (P) to write
the alphabet backward (from Z to A) as rapidly as
possible in 30 seconds.
6. The experimenter gave a one-minute break to the
participant after the first trial
7. After that, the experimenter asked the participants to
estimate the number expected in the second trial.
8. Then proceed to the second trial
9. And then followed the same step for the third, fourth,
and fifth trials.
10. After the experiment, the experimenter gives her
thanks to the participants.
 11. Then the experimenter gave the score of the
participant after scoring it.

D. Subject

The participant is 17 years old (has parental consent)

female, an ABM student in Tagudin National Highschool, and
doesn't have any experience being a participant in any
experiments.
IV. RESULTS

Table 1
Estimated and Achieved Scores of Individual Participant

TRIAL ESTIMATED SCORE ACHIEVED SCORE

1 X 6
2 10 4
3 10 8
4 15 10
5 10 12
MEAN XES= 11.25 XAS= 8.00

The table shows that the estimated score of participants has

only two expected numbers, 10 for the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th trial and
15 for the 4th trial which is recorded as the highest estimated score.
Additionally, the mean of the estimated score is 11. 25. While on the
achieved score, the participant got 6 on her 1st trial then in the 2nd
trial her achieved score decreases to 4 which leads to the
participant's lowest score in the achieved score. In the 3rd, 4th, and
5th trial the achieved score increases by 2 points that lead to the
participant's highest achieved score in the 5th trial which is12. And
the total mean of the achieved score is 8.

Table 2
Mean Estimated and Mean Achieved Score of Individual Participant

MEAN ESTIMATED MEAN ACHIEVED

SCORE SCORE
E1 8.75 8.40
E2 7.00 10.60
E3 0 0
E4 13.75 7.40
E5 12.00 14.00
E6 12.00 12.20
 E7 5.00 3.00
E8 13.25 9.80
E9 23.50 4.00
E10 12.25 12.60
E11 16.75 15.80
E12 12.00 10.80
E13 17.50 3.00
E14 13.5 7.20
E15 7.50 1.00
E16 15.75 6.60
E17 8.25 7.80
E18 11.75 15.40
E19 7.00 7.00
E20 6.50 9.80
E21 21.50 3.00
E22 11.25 8.00
E23 12.20 12.00
E24 12.40 10.20
E25 17.50 15.60
E26 16.50 19.00
E27 6.25 3.20
E28 11.25 7.00
OVERALL MEAN 11.89 8.73

The table shows that the overall mean estimated score is 11.
89. And the highest estimated score is 23. 50 followed by 21. 50
while the lowest estimated score is 5.00. The range mean of
estimated scores of seventeen participants is 11.25- 17.5 and eight
of the participants were in the range mean of 5.00- 8.25.
Additionally, the mean estimated score of 12.00 was obtained by 3
of the participants. On the other hand, the overall mean achieved
score is 8.73. The highest achieved mean score is 19.00 and the
lowest is 1.00. Sixteen of the participants' mean achieved score was
in the range of 1.00- 9.8 and ten of the participants were in the range
of 10.2- 15.60. Three of the participants got the mean achieved score
of 3.00 and two of the participants got the mean achieved score of
7.00. Many of the participants fail to exceed their mean estimated
score and there are only seven who surpass their estimated score.
One of the participants has the same estimated score and achieved
score.

Figure 1
Graphical Presentation of Estimated and Achieved Score of
Individual Participant

16

14

12

10

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6

ESTIMATED SCORE ACHIEVED SCORE

The figure shows that the participant got the highest

estimated score in the 4th trial and the rest of the estimated scores
was in the same grid. While the highest achieved score of the
participant is in the 5th trial which surpasses the estimated score.
Moreover, the participant's 2nd trial decreases after the 1st trial but
the scores in succeeding trials increases.
 Figure 2
Graphical Presentation of Mean Estimated and Mean Achieved
Score of Group Data

25

20

15

10

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30

MEAN ESTIMATED SCORE MEAN ACHIEVED SCORE

Figure 2 shows that some of the mean estimated score has a

big gap between their achieved scores. Only five achieved scores
surpass their estimated scores though it's has a little gap. And the
rest of the mean achieved scores failed to exceed their mean
estimated scores.
V. DISCUSSION

This experiment aims to examine if trials affect the estimated

and achieved scores of the participant in writing the alphabets
backward. The experimenter hypothesized that there is no
significant effect between trials and the scores of the participant in
writing the alphabets backward. The result shows that the
experimenter failed to reject the hypothesis which is there is no
significant effect between trials and the scores of the participant in
writing the alphabets backward.

Individual participant’s graph shows a rising and falling

scores in estimated and achieved scores. In participant’s estimated
scores there is one score that increases and the rest have the remain
the same while in achieved scores one score decreases and the other
scores increases.it just shows that every trial the achieved scores of
the participant’s increases. While on group data graph, the trend
fluctuates because of the diversity of mean scores. Some part of the
graph has a big gap between the mean estimated and mean achieved
score. But mostly the mean estimated and mean achieved scores are
close together. The individual curve looks like identical in some point
while the group curve is vague.

Another, result shows that there is a decrease of achieved

score in the 2nd trial and the participant has a hard time writing
the alphabet backward completely in contrast to the findings of
Mark Pio (2017) who conducted the same experiment. Where in his
participant has a decreased achieved score in the 3rd trial and his
participant completely write the alphabet backward in the 4th and
5th trials within 30 seconds.

Additionally, the participant plays safe on giving an estimated

score because the participant just gives a score that doesn't half of
the total of alphabets. Another thing the participant becomes
confident on the 4th trial because participant achieved scores
increases. Another hindrance that the participant experience in
writing the alphabets backward is the time that gives the
participants be pressure and forget the alphabets that the
participant practice when the participant is having a one-minute
break in every trial. Besides that, the participant should have a
higher achieved score if the participant doesn't mistakenly exchange
two-letters.

Furthermore, almost all of the participants in the group data,

their achieved score failed to exceed their estimated score because
the experimenters asked participants to write the alphabets
backward and participants find it hard to remember the alphabets
that start from Z-A most especially if participants memorize the
alphabets from the beginning to end and not the other way around.
Another thing if people ask someone to recite the alphabet the first
alphabet that comes into their mind is letter A it is because of the
theory called the primary effect of serial recall wherein people
remembers words from the beginning of a list better than the words
from the middle or end (Lumen Learning). Thus, it deviates from the
findings of a research study that recognition of the most recent items
was faster and more accurate than recognition of the first two items
(Talmi et al., 2005).

The participant should recall the alphabet now and then even
though the participant already memorizes it. And if possible, try
challenging her capability and try new things such as using the
recency effect. The participant should also learn how shouldn't be
pressured if she was given a limited time because it makes her forget
the things she practices.
VI. CONCLUSION

The experimenter concludes that:

1. The participant is not familiar with writing the alphabet

backward. Though the purpose of the study which is to familiarize

participant to be familiarize with writing the alphabets backwards is

not fulfilled because the participant doesn’t perfectly write the

alphabets backwards.

2. Indeed trials affect the estimated and achieved scores of the

participant in writing the alphabet backward.

VII. REFERENCES

Mark P. (2017). DOC) EXPERIMENT NO 1 |.

https://www.academia.edu/7786183/EXPERIMENT_NO_1

McLeod, S. A. (2013, August 05). Stages of memory - encoding

storage and retrieval. Simply Psychology.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/memory.html

Talmi et. al (2005). Neuroimaging the Serial Position Curve: A Test

of Single-Store Versus Dual-Store Models.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01601.x

http://www.englishmirror.com/english-grammar/vowels-and-
consonants.html

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-
psychology/chapter/step-3-memory-retrieval/
VIII. APPENDIX

Appendix A
Informed Consent
 Appendix B
Strips of Paper