ANDRADE Aim

To investigate whether doodling improves

(DOODLING)
concentration
Background
- check whether doodling reduced day dreaming
- working memory model (engaging in more than
one process may increase concentration)

Research method Sample

- Laboratory experiment - 40 participants who had just taken part in
- Independent measures design another study
- between ages 18-55
- 20 participants in each group (mostly female)

Procedure
Split into groups. Participants in doodling condition
asked to shade shapes on A4 paper and control given
piece of lined paper and pencil
were led into a quite room one at a time and were given
standardised procedures - researcher specified that is
doesn't matter if they don't remember some details -
place
Made to listen to a 2.5 minute tape of a boring
conversation and remember/write down the names of
the people who attended
sheet was collected and they were talked to
for a minute or so and then asked to recall
the names and places (which was not
specified). Counterbalancing was used at
this point of the experiment
were apologised to for deceptiona nd
debriefed

8
Results Evaluation
6
- Participants in the
control condition did not 4 G - low generalisability due to small sample size
doodle
- 3 doodlers and 4 2
R - standardised procedures,
controls suspected that
is was a memory test 0 A - in classrooms, meetings and seminars
- one participant from
SD
s
s

m
er

ar
w

V - low ecological validity, high mundane realism,

ns

al

the doodle group was

a

lse
ct

less control over exteraneour variables

fa
re

replaced
r
co

- Recall for both monitored and incident information

E - only ethical code broken was deception.
was better for doodlers than controls
-Mean score for recall of names and places was
29% more in doodling group than control group.
Counterbalancing reduced order effects

participant variables may affect results due to

research design