Metamemoria y estrategias mnémicas en escolares

Abstract

The present paper is an attempt to determine the relationship between the level of metamemory attained by children aged 7 and 14 yrs., and their performance in two memory tasks. These tasks were designed to measure not only memory but also the use of two mnemonic strategies: rehearsal and classification. The results of the first task show a better performance by subjects with a high level of metamemory, but only within the group of children aged 7 yrs. In the case of the classification strategy, it seems that its use is not necessarily linked to better performance. Thus, in the group of older children, those with a low level of metamemory make more use of the latter strategy, though their memory is not higher than that of the children with a high level of metamemory. In the group of children aged 7 yrs., the results are similar: those with a high level of metamemory have better recall, but do not use the classification strategy more frequently.