The purpose of this study was to find what proportion of main and subordinate ideas aging adults remembered after casually viewing a television documentary. This study investigated the proportion of main ideas and subordinate ideas recalled immediately and one week later and the change between immediate and delayed retention. This study also examined the relationships between the aging adult's individual characteristics and the immediate and delayed retention of main and subordinate ideas. / Fifty-five aging adults between fifty-two and eighty-nine years of age were participants. Eighty percent were females, and twenty percent were males; their previous educational attainment level was above average. / Participants viewed a commercially-prepared television documentary in a casual setting. A propositional analysis scheme of the program's narration was used to designate main and subordinate ideas. Cued-recall tests were developed and contained 5 items measuring main ideas and 5 items measuring subordinate ideas. Immediately after the program was viewed, participants were given the first cued-recall test. A week later, participants took a different cued-recall test. / Results indicate that there is a statistically significant difference between the immediate recall of main ideas and the immediate recall of subordinate ideas. There is also a statistical difference between the delayed recall of main ideas and the delayed recall of subordinate ideas. Although more main ideas and subordinate ideas are recalled immediately than one week later, the results of this research show no statistical difference between immediate and delayed retention. / When Stepwise Regression was used to analyze the importance of the independent variables age, socioeconomic status, meaningfulness of content and material, attitude towards television and previous education, only education was statistically significant. This variable explained 28% of the immediate main idea retention and 19% of the immediate subordinate idea retention. Previous education explained 20% of the main ideas and 18% of the subordinate ideas recalled one week after viewing the documentary. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-09, Section: A, page: 2730. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75413 |
| Contributors | STOKES, LAURA CHRISTINA., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 157 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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