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University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Vocabulary acquisition and the generation effect

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

This study investigated two methods of inducing the Generation Effect and how its principles might be incorporated in vocabulary acquisition. Subjects attempted to learn 22 unfamiliar vocabulary words under one of three conditions. (1) definition-only control subjects repeatedly wrote each word and definition; (2) sentence generation subjects wrote each word and definition and then wrote a meaningful sentence using that word; and (3) definition generation subjects read the words embedded in context sentences and extrapolated and wrote the word meanings. Subjects were tested following a distracter task, 48-hours later, and again 21-days later. Significant main effects were found for encoding condition and time of test, with no significant interaction between the two. Sentence generation subjects performed better than the other two groups of subjects and subjects performed best at immediate recall, followed by 48-hour and then 21-day delayed recall. The results are interpreted with respect to a levels-of-processing explanation.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science (MS)
Level thesis:degree_level
Thesis
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Educational Psychology
Grantor dc:publisher
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Year
2003

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Badgett, Barbara Anne
Contributors dc:contributor
  • Alice J. Corkill

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Language dc:language
English

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:oasis.library.unlv.edu:rtds-2576

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
University of Nevada - Las Vegas
Base URL
oasis.library.unlv.edu/do/oai/
Last updated
2026-07-24
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
related terms
citation

Badgett, Barbara Anne. Vocabulary acquisition and the generation effect. Thesis thesis, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2003. https://doi.org/10.25669/01h7-pl8a