Abstract:

Prospective memory is the memory for executing future intentional behavior at a proper time or occasion. Successful execution of prospective memory includes both a prospective and a retrospective component. The prospective component refers to remembering to do something when a prospective cue is encountered, and the retrospective component is the retrieval of the content of the intention to be executed. Both the prospective and retrospective components are indispensable for the successful execution of prospective memory tasks. Low achieving pupils in math with normal intelligence performed poorly on prospective memory tasks relative to high achieving math pupils. Because a failure of prospective memory may underlie academic failure in low achieving pupils in math, it is important to identify the causes of poor prospective memory performance. This study addresses the question of whether implementation intention encoding improves prospective memory performance in low achieving pupils in math and whether its effects are localized to the prospective and/or the retrospective component?
In this study, two experiments were conducted to explore the above questions. Experiment 1 used a prospective memory task that disassociated the prospective component and retrospective component. Thirty-eight (38) pupils were recruited. The study adopted a mixed design of 2 (ability group: low math achieving pupils, high math achieving pupils) × 2 (cognitive load of ongoing tasks: high, low) with the latter as a within-subjects variable. Experiment 2 investigated whether encoding conditions improved low math achieving pupils’ prospective memory. Sixty (60) low achieving pupils in math were recruited. The study adopted a mixed design of 2 (cognitive load of ongoing tasks: high, low) × 2 (encoding method: standard encoding, implementation intention encoding) with the latter as a between-subjects variable.
The results of Experiment 1 showed that accuracy rates of prospective and retrospective components of low achieving pupils in math were significantly lower than that of high achieving pupils in math, [prospective component: F (1, 34) = 5.30, p = 0.028, η_p² = 0.14; retrospective component: F (1, 34) = 21.05, p < 0.01, η_p² = 0.39]. In addition, pupils yielded significantly lower accuracy rates on the high cognitive load condition than that in the low cognitive load condition, [prospective component: F (1, 34) = 9.28, p = 0.004, η_p² = 0.21; retrospective component: F (1, 34) = 10.98, p = 0.002, η_p² = 0.25]. No significant interaction emerged between ability group and cognitive load (p > 0.05) (see Table 1).
The results of Experiment 2 replicated the above findings that significantly lower accuracy rates occurred in the high cognitive load than the low cognitive load condition, [prospective component: F (1, 54) = 7.54, p = 0.008, η_p² = 0.12; retrospective component: F (1, 54) = 11.09, p = 0.002, η_p² = 0.17]. The results also showed that the accuracy rates for the prospective and retrospective components were significantly higher for the implementation intention encoding condition than those in the standard encoding condition, [prospective component: F (1, 54) = 5.34, p = 0.025, η_p² = 0.09; retrospective component: F (1, 54) = 6.99, p = 0.011, η_p² = 0.12]. Additionally, the interaction between cognitive load and the encoding method was not significant (p > 0.05) (see Table 2).
The results indicated that low achieving pupils in math performed worse on measures of prospective memory than high achieving pupils in math. The results also showed that regardless of cognitive load, implementation intention encoding improved the performance of low math achieving pupils' prospective memory performance by enhancing both the prospective and retrospective components.

Key words: prospective memory, prospective component, retrospective component, low achieving pupils in math, cognitive load, encoding method