Effectiveness of mnemonic strategies for acquiring and retaining place location associations

This study compared the effectiveness of a mnemonic and a non-mnemonic study strategy for immediate and delayed recall of place location associations. Subjects were 43 college student volunteers, predominantly female education majors, ranging in age from 21 to 44 years. Treatment consisted of a self-paced study period of up to 35 minutes, during which subjects in the mnemonic group studied hints linking place names to their map location, while subjects in the non-mnemonic group used their own best method to study. Place location tests administered immediately after the study period (acquisition) and one week later (retention) were compared between-groups using an analysis of variance (ANOVA) with a Type I error probability of.05. The mnemonic group retained significantly (F(41,1) = 13.63, p $<$.002) more place locations than the non-mnemonic group. It was concluded that mnemonic strategies can facilitate the long-term retention of place location associations for college students.