THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ATTITUDE AND KNOWLEDGE GAIN THROUGH REPEATED RETRIEVAL

Abstract: This study examines how attitudes in middle age individuals affect information processing regarding factual information by using the method repeated retrieval. The study consisted of a questionnaire to establish participants environmental attitudes. This was followed by a training program with environmental information presented with repeated retrieval, which is a well established learning method. Lastly, the participants conducted a test to observe knowledge gained from the training. The study consisted of 32 participants (17 men, 14 women, one “other/do not wish to say”, M=53.84, age span 37-77). The questions in the questionnaire represents categories of attitudes towards the environment. The categories used in this study is referred to as Viewpoint, Scepticism, Behaviour, and Willingness. These were the independent variables. The score from the test, Test score, was the dependent variable. A hierarchical multiple regression was conducted showing model significance but none of the regressors were independently significant. This might be because of highly correlated regressors. However, a trend indicated that a high score in Scepticism, being more sceptical, might have led to a decrease in Test score.  A correlational analysis was conducted to see if the regressors were highly correlated. The results showed that Test score correlated significantly negative with Scepticism and significantly positive with Willingness and Behaviour. This might indicate that a negative attitude, Scepticism, could affect the learning process negatively while positive attitudes, Willingness and Behaviour, could affect the learning process positively. Because of the small sample size this is seen as a trend and more research is needed.