The structure of short-term memory recall of referral case information by school psychology students and experienced school psychologist

This study (n = 34) used a short-term memory research paradigm to investigate the structure of verbal recall of referral case information by school psychology students and experienced school psychologists. A coding scheme was developed to analyze structural differences of verbal output in recall.;In general, the results of this study support the hypothesis of the presence of structural differences in the information recall between school psychology students and experienced school psychologists. Specifically, there were no significant differences between the student and experienced groups in total number of facts recalled, number of facts per chunk, and number of errors, approximations or combinations. However, there were significant differences between the two groups in number of chunks and number of interactive products (i.e., comparisons, interpretations, recommendations and critiques), across all four cases. Students had significantly more chunks and significantly fewer interactive products in their recall than the experienced school psychologists.;Results also support the hypothesis that experienced school psychologists would be more diagnostically accurate than school psychology students. However, these results do not support the hypothesis that there would be a relationship between perceived importance of information categories and output order. Post hoc analyses revealed that school psychology students and experienced school psychologists recalled the information units in the same order in which the information was presented to them.;Implications for future research are discussed, including methodological considerations in analyzing verbal transcripts, and research design issues regarding the expert/novice paradigm. Suggestions for the teaching and supervision of school psychology students are offered.