Impact Of Age And Gender On Recalling Ability: A Research Study

Does age group affects the ability to recall; between male and female? 

Today, recalling ability of a person is decreasing gradually and it is considered as one of the most common mental illness many people face nowadays. A study by Eysenck (1974) showed that recalling ability of a person decreases with increasing age. This study by Eysenck (1974) will be modified in this research. According to the previous study, people, irrespective of their ages, are able to remember the color names. They are unable to remember texts or scrambled proverbs. Thus, the young subjects are more active in remembering texts and scrambled proverbs than the old subjects.

Based on the study conducted previously, this study has been stated. The time and people of 1974 were a lot different from the people of today. A lot of technological advancements have occurred. With the advancements and application of technology, the recalling ability of a person has decreased to a great extent. The introduction of telephone was of a great help but with the availability of mobile phones, the ability of a person to remember a phone number has decreased (Hartshorne & Germine, 2015). It is always saved in the phone, and can be dialed whenever necessary. Searching addresses and new places are looked for in Google maps. Any problems come up; it is easier to search it on Google than trying to remember it. Thus, all these have a positive effect on the recalling ability of a person (Pauls, Petermann & Lepach, 2013).

For this research, data has been collected of 100 individuals. The factors of consideration for this study include age, sex, education and recall type. The variable age has been grouped into two divisions, young and old. Sex has been segregated as males and females. Education has been segregated as less than 12 years and more than 12 years and data on recollection has been recorded.

The main aim of this study is to check the impact of age and gender on recalling ability of a person. The association between the variables will be tested using chi-square test. The percentage of the dependent variable recalling ability explained by the independent variables will be tested using univariate analysis of variance. The tests of equality of means have been done on recalling abilities for the two age groups separately for males and females. All the tests have been done at 5% level of significance.

The people of older age are not much accustomed with all these technologies but the younger people are greatly affected by it. Thus, the results of the previous research might not hold today. This research has been conducted to check the impact of age and gender on recalling ability of the people.

The hypothesis of this study can thus be stated as follows.

H₀₁: Age and ability to recall are independent

H₀₂: Gender and ability to recall are independent.

The above stated hypothesis will be tested using appropriate statistical techniques in the following sections. 

At first, the descriptive analysis of the variables have been done. Since the variables age group and gender are categorical variables, their variations are shown diagrammatically using pie charts. Descriptive statistics such as mean, median, mode, etc. cannot be calculated for these variables. From the pie charts it can be seen that, 44% of the sample are males and the remaining 56% are females. 50% people in the sample of study are young, that is below 30 years and 50% people are older, that is aged above 30 years. Recalling type is 20% in each of the five categories of recalling type - counting, rhyming, adjective, imagery and international.  

Results

Next, to check the association between age group and recall ability, chi square test of association has been performed. The test results states that the significance value is 1 which is greater than the level of significance (0.05). There is no significant difference between the two variables. Thus, age group and ability to recall are independent of each other.

Similarly, chi-square test of association has been done to test the association between the variables sex and ability to recall. The test results in this case also states that the significance value for these two variables is 0.9 which also is higher than the level of significance (0.05). There is no significant difference between the two variables. Thus, sex and ability to recall are independent of each other.

The clustered bar graphs will show that there is no difference at all between age group and recall type and there is very little difference between sex and age group. 

Univariate analysis of variance test has been performed to consider the three variables together and testing the effects of the independent variables age group and gender on the dependent variable ability to recall. 

The results of univariate analysis of variance shows that age group has no significant effect on recalling ability whereas gender has a little effect on the recalling ability. However, age group and gender together can explain only 9% of the dependent variable recalling ability.

Further, independent sample t-test has been performed to check the equality of the means for females for the two age groups on recalling ability. The null hypothesis has been stated as

H₀₃: The means of recalling abilities are equal for young and old females

The test results shows that the p-value is 0.038, which is less than the level of significance (0.05). Thus, the null hypothesis is rejected. There is difference between recalling abilities by females of young and old ages. Moreover, it can be said that recalling ability of younger females is more than older females.

Again, independent sample t-test has been performed to check the equality of the means for males for the two age groups on recalling ability. The null hypothesis has been stated as

H₀₄: The means of recalling abilities are equal for young and old males

The test results shows that the p-value is 0.028, which is less than the level of significance (0.05). Thus, the null hypothesis is rejected. There is difference between recalling abilities by males of young and old ages. Moreover, it can be said that the recalling ability of younger males is more than the recalling ability of females. 

Again, independent sample t-test has been performed to check the equality of the means for younger people on recalling ability. The null hypothesis has been stated as

H₀₅: The means of recalling abilities are equal for younger people.

The test results shows that the p-value is 0.789, which is greater than the level of significance (0.05). Thus, the null hypothesis is accepted. There is no difference between recalling abilities between young males and females.

Discussions

Again, independent sample t-test has been performed to check the equality of the means between older males and females on recalling ability. The null hypothesis has been stated as

H₀₆: The means of recalling abilities are equal for older people.

The test results shows that the p-value is 0.513, which is greater than the level of significance (0.05). Thus, the null hypothesis is accepted. There is no difference between recalling abilities between older males and females. 

All the above stated hypothesis has been tested. The first hypothesis H₀₁ was to test whether age and ability to recall are independent. This test has been conducted using chi-square test of association. From the test result it can be inferred that the hypothesis is accepted. Thus, age and ability to recall are independent.

The second hypothesis H₀₂ stated that gender and ability to recall are independent of each other. This test has also been conducted using chi-square test of association. The test results states that the hypothesis is accepted. Thus, gender and ability to recall are independent of each other.

The third hypothesis H_03, was to test the equality of means of recalling abilities between the two age groups young and old females. The test has been done using independent sample t-test. The results state that the hypothesis is rejected. Thus, the recalling ability between young and old females differ significantly. Moreover, recalling ability among young females is more than older females.

The fourth hypothesis H_04, of this study is to test the equality of means of recalling abilities between young and old males. This has also been tested using the technique of independent sample t-test. From the test results, it can be inferred that the hypothesis is rejected. Thus, there is a significant difference between the recalling ability of young and old males.

The fifth hypothesis H_05, of this study is to test the equality of means of recalling abilities between young males and females. This has also been tested using the technique of independent sample t-test. From the test results, it can be inferred that the hypothesis is accepted. Thus, there is a no significant difference between the recalling abilities of young males and females.

The sixth and last hypothesis H_06, of this study is to test the equality of means of recalling abilities between older males and females. This has also been tested using the technique of independent sample t-test. From the test results, it can be inferred that the hypothesis is accepted. Thus, there is a no significant difference between the recalling abilities of older males and females.

The implication of the research is the utilization of the individual work performance questionnaire (IWPQ) measure. This is because the IWPQ showed to demonstrate high reliability for the findings. In addition, it also showed to have good and sufficient validity for the research. Future research can be done by sub dividing the age group into more than two subgroups. This is because younger participants are more likely to have more recalling ability and show a better performance in work. Future research should also emphasize on doing research on how gender and recalling ability or memory in other words, could affect their performance during work or in school.  

References

Eysenck, M. W. (1974). Age differences in incidental learning. Developmental Psychology, 10(6), 936.

Hartshorne, J. K., & Germine, L. T. (2015). When does cognitive functioning peak? The asynchronous rise and fall of different cognitive abilities across the life span. Psychological science, 26(4), 433-443.

Pauls, F., Petermann, F., & Lepach, A. C. (2013). Gender differences in episodic memory and visual working memory including the effects of age. Memory, 21(7), 857-874.