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***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org ***** Two studies of professors' memory for their undergraduate students (at small liberal arts colleges) suggest rapidly declining recall and recognition memory of former students over time (Bahrick HP, 1984, "Memory for people," in JE Harris, PE Morris, eds., Everyday memory, actions and absent-mindedness, Academic Press; Seamon JG, Travis QB, 1993, An ecological study of professors' memory for student names and faces: a replication and extension, Memory, 1(3): 191-202). The situation is likely a little different with graduate students (with whom professors may more often stay in touch after graduation), but the shape of the retention curve over time may well be similar. Recalling students from particular years may be problematic. The literature on autobiographical memory indicates a reasonable amount of error is present when people estimate dates of events (typically the events are provided to the respondent, a less difficult task than the one you describe). The absolute level of error increases linearly with time since the event. If your study is focused on the methodological question of professors' recall, then your design would be good and the results a useful contribution to the literature. If your purpose is more substantively oriented, I would recommend not relying on recall data at all; instead, it would make more sense to give the names of former students to the professors and ask questions about them systematically. Devon Brewer --------------------------------------------------------------- Devon D. Brewer, Ph.D. Interdisciplinary Scientific Research, www.interscientific.net Affiliate Assistant Professor, University of Washington --------------------------------------------------------------- On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, David Carpe wrote: > ***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org ***** > > okay, sorry to bother you with this, but i've got a random question for > those of you who have been in academia for at least 15 years or longer... > > i'm involved in an odd research study with a large client, looking at the > activities and outcomes of students from select universities within a > specific major during the mid to late 80's...one idea involved approaching > then current profs and asking them something to the effect of, 'do you > remember who these top students were from 1987, or 1985' and so on - in one > case not offering the names (i have the names of all of their students) and > seeing if they remember any off hand...there's much more to it than that, > but what i'm really wondering is if professors typically are able to recall > specific students by year from that long ago (versus recent students of > their own within ms and phd programs) - these are all grad students, not > undergrads, though that's still a large number... > > any thoughts? i can certainly clarify a bit more if it doesn't make sense, > and i suppose that this has more to do with overall memory skills and not > just the memory skills of academicians... > -dave > > David Carpe > Principal and Founder, Clew, LLC (http://www.clew.us) > Founder, PassingNotes.com (http://www.passingnotes.com) > E: [log in to unmask] OR [log in to unmask] OR whatever's up above > W: 781.674.2539 > M: 781.883.5487 > **Internet Email Confidentiality Footer*** > Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message. If > you are not the addressee indicated in this message (or responsible for > delivery of the message to such person), you may not copy or deliver this > message to anyone. In such case, you should destroy this message and kindly > notify the sender by reply email. Please advise immediately if you or your > employer do not consent to Internet email for messages of this kind. > Opinions, conclusions and other information in this message that do not > relate to the official business of my firm shall be understood as neither > given nor endorsed by it. > > _____________________________________________________________________ > SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social > network researchers (http://www.insna.org). To unsubscribe, send > an email message to [log in to unmask] containing the line > UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message. > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Devon D. Brewer Affiliate Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Psychology, and Sociology email: [log in to unmask] http://faculty.washington.edu/ddbrewer --------------------------------------------------------------------------- _____________________________________________________________________ SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social network researchers (http://www.insna.org). To unsubscribe, send an email message to [log in to unmask] containing the line UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message.