On Saturday January 9th Ms. Gannon's fifth class presented their project 'Is memory affected by age or gender?' at the BT Young Scientist in the RDS. We tested 181 participants over several weeks. There were 102 females and 79 males tested. We tested the junior infant class, two second classes and sixth class in our school. Teachers and SNAs were also tested in school. At home we tested parents and grandparents.
We found that age did affect memory. The youngest people tested, Junior Infants, scored lowest on all three tests. The second youngest people tested scored lowest on one of the three tests and third lowest on the other two. Grandparents scored fifth on two of the tests and third on the card matching game. Parents scored highest on two of the three tests, while Special Needs Assistants scored highest on the other test. So overall the youngest people tested scored lowest followed by the eldest.
We found that gender does play a role in memory. Female participants scored highest overall on all three tests. Female teachers scored highest on the Card Matching Game, while male teachers scored lowest on this. The judge was very impressed with our project and awarded us a trophy. The judge said 'This was an amazing project. The children had a very clear question and methods to test them. I very much enjoyed taking the tests with them and using my data to discuss how I compared with their average results. Well done to all involved. Amazing work!'
We found that age did affect memory. The youngest people tested, Junior Infants, scored lowest on all three tests. The second youngest people tested scored lowest on one of the three tests and third lowest on the other two. Grandparents scored fifth on two of the tests and third on the card matching game. Parents scored highest on two of the three tests, while Special Needs Assistants scored highest on the other test. So overall the youngest people tested scored lowest followed by the eldest.
We found that gender does play a role in memory. Female participants scored highest overall on all three tests. Female teachers scored highest on the Card Matching Game, while male teachers scored lowest on this. The judge was very impressed with our project and awarded us a trophy. The judge said 'This was an amazing project. The children had a very clear question and methods to test them. I very much enjoyed taking the tests with them and using my data to discuss how I compared with their average results. Well done to all involved. Amazing work!'