Cognitive Strategy In Learning Chemistry: How Chunking And

The Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Science

Volume 2, Issue 1



www.moj-es.net



Cognitive Strategy In Learning Chemistry:

How Chunking And Learning Get Together

NormaCheLah[1],RohaidaMohdSaat[2],RuhayaHassan[3] 



[1] [email protected]

Department of Mathematics and

Science Education

Faculty of Education, University

of Malaya

[2]

[email protected]

Department of Mathematics and

Science Education

Faculty of Education, University

of Malaya

[3] [email protected]

Aminuddin Baki Institute

ABSTRACT

The study explores chunking strategies applied in Short Term Memory (STM) by

upper secondary students of mixed chemistry learning abilities. The aim of the

study is to observe variations in chunking strategies utilized by these students

when learning the Periodic Table of Elements in the Form Four Chemistry syllabus.

Findings show that students applied varied chunking strategies, of which, three

patterns prevailed at STM level: similar chunking, mixed chunking, and

characteristic chunking. Secondary school teachers in guiding their students

through the Chemistry learning process should remain mindful of presenting

didactic materials in a way that not only accommodates the students’ various

chunking strategies abilities needs, but at the same time hone the students’

learning skills.

Keywords:

chunking strategies, cognitive strategies, Short Term

Memory

INTRODUCTION

Chunking strategy is a cognitive strategy applied to enhance mental performance (Afflerbach et al., 2008). It

involvesthereorganizingofbulkinformationintovarioussmallerchunkswithoutaddingorsubstractingthequantity

ofnewinformationbeingacquired.Reorganizationofinformationoccursatthepatternfindinglevelwithinthesetof

itemstobe storedinST

M.The

itemsare thengroupedtogetherbasedon perceptualprinciplessuchassimilarity or

proximitytomakethemmoremeaningful(Gilchrist&Cowan,2012).Inourcase,theinformationwasgroupedbased

on similar characteristics which could easily, comfortably and confidently be identified at the retrieval level. Three

chunkingstrategieswereidentifiedinthisstudy:mixedchunking,similarchunkingandcharacteristicchunking.Mixed

chunkingentailsaninformationreduction proc

esswhichs

eeslargepieceofinformationreducedintosmallerandmore

manageable information chunks containing different numbers of elements. Similar chunking consists of separating

informationintosimilarelements,whereascharacteristicchunkingisinfluencedbyelementsofsimilarpronunciation

orothercharacteristicsprovidingstrongconnectiontoeachother.

ChunkingStrategyinLearningProcess

Chunkingisasignificant learningstrategy aimed at overcomingShort Term Memory (STM) limitations. Miller

(1956)characterizedchunkingasaprocessofcombining differentitemsintoa meaningfullarger unitthatfacilitates

itemstorageinSTM.Thechunkingstrategyreducescognitiveoverloadthereforeincreasingthelearner’smentalstorage

capacity.Forintance,inlearni

nghowtospell

H‐O‐R‐S‐E,fivestorageunitintheSTMarerequired.However,ifalearner

associatesthemeaningof‘HORSE’totheanimalitself,heorshewouldonlyneedonestorageunit.Thestrategymoves

uptoahigherassistiverankifthelearnerc

njuresupaschema,orassociatesthewordwithbackgroundknowledgeof

theanimal.

 According to West, Farmer, and Wolff (1991), chunking strategy is a mental process grouped into three

categories:linearchunking,taxonomicandmultipurpose.Linearchunkingisinformationarrangedintotime,spaceor

processascontrolledbyth

ehi

storychronology.Taxonomicchunkingistheprocessofarranginginformationasobserved

inBloom’sTaxonomyforcognitivedomain,whereasthemultipurposechunkinginvolvesthemechanismofarranging

basedoneitherthevolumeorthelackofinformationlearned. 

The Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Science

Volume 2, Issue 1



www.moj-es.net



 ChunkingstrategyaccordingtoBanikowskiandAlison(1999)issignificantlydifferentfromthatofMiller(1956).

InBanikowskiandAlison,a24numbersunitwaschunkedintosixsmallerunitofnumbers,withtheapparentconclusion

thatthesix smallchunk unitswere easierto recall.Nonetheless,theycameto thesame conclusionasMiller,thata

smallerstorage un

itat theSTM levelwas neede

dto executethis mental process.Banikowski andAlison (1999)also

foundthatlearnersoflesscognitiveabilitytendedtohaveverylimitedSTM.Inthiscase,theyhighlightedtheteachers

oftenmadethemistakeofre

gularlyprovidi

nglargeunitsofinformationinshortperiodsoftimedisablingthelearners’

abilitytoprocesstheinformationatSTMlevel.AmorerecentstudybyZhou(2005)illustrateshowchunkingstrategy

involvingthebreakingupoflargeinformationorconceptsintosmallersegments,enablelearnerstomanagethesmaller

segmented information an

d therefore impr

ove Chinese language learning. Zhou’s study is in line with the chunking

strategypresentedbyBanikowskiandAlison(1999).

 The chunking strategy importance in the teaching and learning process led us to this specific study which

undertakesanin‐depthstudyofthechunkingstrategyatSTMlevelbyfor

mfourChemis

tryStudentsofmixedlearning

abilities.

METHODOLOGY

 Thisisaqualitativedatacollectiontechniquestudyinvolvingsixmixedabilitylearnersviapurposivesampling.

Threedatacollectiontechniqueswereutilizedwiththemaindataobtainedfrominterviewandsupporteddatagained

fromobservationanddocumentanalysis.Inthisstudy,thedoc

mentanalysiswascarriedoutusingthelearner’sown

journal.

DataCollectionandAnalysis

 Thirty‐six verbatim trancriptions were collected from six participants, Maula and Joy representing high

achievers,AmirahandCarolaretheaverageachievers,andAdrieanaandNadiraharethelowachievers.Allthenames

usedarenotthestudent’srealnamestoprotecttheirprivacyandanonymity.Thedataanalysis wasbasedonth

euse

of c

hunking strategy variations employed by the six learners in completing their assignments; labelled as cognitive

strategytask(cost).



Cost1‐AssignmenttomemorizeandunderstandtwentyelementsinthePeriodicTablewithreferenceto

theirprotonnumber.

Cost2‐Assignmenttomemorizeandunderstandfortyelementsinth

ePe

riodicTablereferringto

periodictablelocation.

Cost3‐Assignmenttomemorizeandunderstandfortymonatomicions.

Cost4‐Assignmenttomemorizeandunderstandcationsandanionswithdifferentcharges.

Cost5‐Assignmenttomemorizeandunderstandfourteencommonpolyatomicions.

Cost6‐Assignmenttomemorizeandun

derstandMetalReactivitySeriesandEle

ctrochemicalseries.



Fromthecollecteddata,codesandcategorieswereidentifiedandathemebegantoemerge.Eachparticipant

underwentsixassignmentsonstagesandbasedonthirtysixsetsofinterviewtranscriptions,thecodingprocesswas

done until the resilient theme emerged. Excerpt 1 illustrates how Adriean

a used cognitive strategies, to assist her

installinginformationintheSTM.



The Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Science

Volume 2, Issue 1



www.moj-es.net



Excerpt1:

 Adrieana: Ihavetoreadouteverythingfirst,thenrepeattheelementsmyself.

 Reseacher: Howmanytimes?

 Adrieana: UntilIdidit.

 Reseacher: Anyideahowmanytimes?

 Adrieana: Tenormore.

 Reseacher: yourepeatthewholelistandrepeatitagain?

 Adrieana: Istartedwithhydroge

nfirst,thenHelium,Lithi

um,soImemorizeinthe 

chunksofthree,thenafterImemorizefourthpositionsBeryllium,Idid 

BoronandCarbon.

 Reseacher: BoronandCarbononly?

 Adrieana: afterthatnitrogen,oxygentogetherbecauseofthe‘gen’behind.Proton 

  number 9and10belon

stoChlorineandNeon...

 Reseacher: Okay.



Rehearsal strategies were clearly observed during the interview, however, this strategy is not discussed in

detailed in thiswriting.Eight element names were chunked into smaller unit of information which consisted of five

clustered of one, two, one, two, two information units. The unit one, two, one

, two, two representing (Hydrogen),

(Helium, Lithium), (Beryllium), (Boron, Carbon) (Chlorine, Neon). Characteristics chunking revealed by classifying

nitrogenandoxygentogetherbecauseofsimilarityonsound.WhereasChlorineandNeonareassociatedwithitsproton

numberandBerylliumisassociated withthepositioninthe Periodi

cTa

bles. Thedatawere analyzedandthe overall

findingsarediscussedindetail.

FINDINGS

Thestudyhasidentifiedthreemaincategoriesofchunkingstrategiesamongstthesixlearners.Thesearemixed

chunkingstrategy,similarchunkingstrategyandcharacteristicchunkingstrategy.Themixedchunkingstrategyrequired

learnerstogroupalargeunitofinformationintoseveralsmallerchu

nksofdiff

erentnumberofunits.Forexample,if

thereare12unitsofinformationtoberemembered,learnerswillgroupthis12unitsintosmallgroupsof(5)(5)(2)or

anycombinationofdifferentbutequivalentunitstothatoftheoriginal12unitsofin

formation.Similarly,ifthere

were

16unitsofinformationtoremember,learnerswillgroupthese16unitsintosmallgroupsof(5)(5)(4)(2)oranyother

equivalentbutdifferentunitsthatequalstothat16unitofinformation.Thesimilarchunkingstrategydiffersslightly

fromthemixedchunkingstrategyinthatwhenlearnersgro

upsa

setof‘large’unitsoflearningintoseveralsmallerones,

the smaller groups have equal number of units. So, for example if there are 20 units of information to remember,

learners will group the 20 units into small groups of (5)(5)(5)(5) or (4)(4)(4)(4)(4). The third main c

hunking strategy

identifiedisthecharacteristi

cchunkingstrategywhichwasusedbylearnerswhogroupeda‘large’unitofinformation

intosmallergroupsbasedonsimilarcharacteristicssuchasname,formula,metalreactiontowaterandsuchlike.



The Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Science

Volume 2, Issue 1



www.moj-es.net



MixedChunkingStrategy



  





Figure 1. The chunking of l8 units of information to smaller units of (4)(4)(4)(4)(2).

Fromthe18unitsofinformationlearned,Joy,ahigh‐achieverlearner,groupedtheinformationintofivesmall

chunksasillustratedinFigure1.Sheusedthemixedchunkingstrategyinwhicheachofthesmallchunkhadachunk

componentof4, 4,4,4and2elements. Inthis case,th

efirst smallchunkconsistedof lithium,beryllium, boronand

carbon, the second chunk consists of nitrogen, oxygen, chlorine and neon, the third chunk consisted of sodium,

magnesium,aluminumandsilicon,thefourthchunkconsistedofphosphorus,sulphur,chlorineandargonandthefifth

chunk unit consisted of two elements pot

ssium and calcium. Maula, another high‐achiever, grouped 12 units of

information into three sets of smaller chunks of (5)(2)(5)as illustrated in Figure 2.An interesting observation is the

mixed chunking strategy applied by Adrieana, in the low‐achiever learner category, which still applies the c

hunking

strategy,

althoughthe‘large’unitofinformationtoberecalledconsistedofonlysixunits,whichweredividedintothree

setsof(3)(1)(2)ofmuchsmallerchunks,asillustratedinFigure3.



  



Figure 2. The chunking of 12 units of information to smaller units of (5)(2)(5).



The Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Science

Volume 2, Issue 1



www.moj-es.net



  



Figure 3. The chunking of 6 units of information to even more smaller units of (3)(1)(2).

Thefindingsclearlydemonstratethat thelearners’useofmixedchunkingstrategyinordertoenablethemselves

torememberthe‘large’unitofinformationrequiredtoberecalled.Thisappearstobethelearners’wayofincreasing

theircognitiveperformanceintheirattempttoincreasethetransferofmoreinformationattheSTMleveltoLTM.

SimilarChunkingStrategy

The similarchunking strategy isnot muchdifferentfrom themixed chunkingstrategy exceptfor thelearners

chunkingthelargerunitofinformationintosmallergroupsofequalnumberoflearningunits,forexample,chunking15

unitsofinformationtothreesmallofgroupsof(5)(5)(5).Inthisstudy,Maula,ahi

gher‐achieverlearner,grou

peda20

units information chunk into ten small groups consisting of (2)(2)(2)(2)(2)(2)(2)(2)(2)(2). Maula claims that when he

remembersthenameofthefirstelement,hecaneasilyrememberthenameofthesecondelementinthesamesmall

chunk. For example, in the small chunks of hydrogen‐helium, when Maula remem

ers hydrogen, he automatically

remembershelium.Hedescribestheprocessthathegoesthroughduringthestudyasfollows:

Mungkin kebiasaannya saya ingat secara berpasangan macam, hidrogen‐helium, lithium‐

beryllium;bilasayaingatyangpertama,dengansendirinyasayaingatyangkedua.

[Translated as: Maybe, as usual I te

nd to remember in pairs, like hydrogen‐helium, lithium‐

beryllium;sowhenIrememberthefirst(element),Inaturallyrememberthesecond.]



ThesimilarchunkingstrategyisfurtherillustratedinFigure4.



  



Figure 4. The chunking of 20 units of information to smaller units of (2)(2)(2)(2)(2)(2)(2)(2)(2)(2).



The Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Science

Volume 2, Issue 1



www.moj-es.net



CharacteristicChunkingStrategy

The thrid chunking strategy identified in this study is the characteristic chunking strategy. The first

characteristicchunkingstrategyisbasedonthesamechargeions.Inthecaseofargentumandcopper,MaulaandJoy,

botharehigh‐achievers,groupedthetwometalstogetherbecausebothhavethesamecationcharge+1.Thelear

ners’

journals also i

ndicate that while doing Cost 5 assignment, both, Maula and Joy grouped the ion with one charge

together,whileionshavingmorethanonechargearechunkedindifferentgroups.Bothlearnersindicatedthattheir

strategy(characterictischunking)helpsthemtostoretheinformationatLTMlevel.

Thesecondcharacteristicchunkin

gstrategyisidentifiedasbasedonsimilar(ornearsimilar)nameandformula.

Amongstionsthatfallintothiscategoryareoxideion(O

2‐

)andperoxideion(O

2‐

)

whichareplacedinthesamegroup.

Thestudyalsoidentifiesthethirdcharacteristicchunkingstrategywhichsharesthesamenameending.Inthiscontext,

hydrogen,helium, lithiumandberyllium areplacedin the samegroup becausethey (except forhydrogen)share the

same‘ium’ending,whereaschlorine,bromineandiodineareplace

dtogetherinano

thergroupbecauseoftheir‘ine’

ending.Basedon thestudy,alllearners fromallmixed abilitygroupsindicatedthateachof thechunkinggroup that

theyhavecreatedhaditsownmeaningfulconnection.

 Thefourthchunkingstrategyischaracterizedbymetalreactivitywithwater.Lithium,s

odiumandp

otassium

aregroupedtogetherbecauseallthreemetalsdissolveinwater.Thisspecificcharacteristicenableslearnerstoretrieve

the information from LTM when required. Another characteristic chunking strategy identified is based on the

characteristicsofmetal.Maula(oneofthehigh‐achievers)placedplatinum,goldandmercurytoget

herbasedonth

e

factthatallthreearemetals.ThisinformationishelpfulforMauladuringtheretrievalprocess.Thestudyalsofound

thatsomelearnerscombinetwochunkingstrategies,forexample,thecharacteristicandsimilarchunkingstrategies,in

theirattemptatbetterinformationretrievalfromLTM.

 Figure5ca

pturesall

thethreemainchunkingstrategiesencounteredinthisstudy;themixedchunkingstrategy,

thesimilarchunkingstrategyandthecharacteristicchunkingstrategy.

    



Figure 5. Three main chunking strategies at STM level.



The Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Science

Volume 2, Issue 1



www.moj-es.net



DISCUSSION

Thestudyfindsthatbasedonthethreemainchunkingstrategies,high‐achieverlearners(MaulaandJoy)tend

toutilizealltheidentifiedchunkingstrategies.Theyalsoindicatedotherpositivecharacteristicssuchaslesstimetaken

inapplyingthechunkingstrategiescomparedtotheiraverageandlower‐achievercounterparts.Thesefindin

gsseemto

align with Mor

i (2010) which demonstrated that high‐achiever learners are able to use time wisely as well as more

activelyandconstantlymonitortheirownlearningperformance.Thechunkingstrategiesusedbytheaverageandlow

achieverstendtobeslightlydifferentfromthehigh‐achieversinwhichtheystilluse

thechunkingstrategieseventhough

thequantityofinformationthatneedstoberememberedislittle.ThiscanbetracedbacktowhenAdriena,oneofthe

low‐achievers, still needed to chunk six units of information into (3)(1)(2). This finding is in line with Miller’s (1

956)

assertionthatthech

unkingoflargeunitofinformationtoseveralsmalleroneshelpstoreducelearners’cognitiveload

inthelearningprocess.

IMPLICATIONSANDCONCLUSIONS

 In this study, three types of chunking strategies were identified in the learning process of six Form Four

participants.Thefindingsaresignificantinundersta

ndinghowlearnersle

arn,andfurtherassiststeachersinselecting

themostappropriateteachingstrategythatenablesstudentsofvariouscognitivelevelstolearnandpracticeeffective

cognitivestrategies.

 Fromapracticalpointofview,awarenessofthechunkingstrategiesutilizedbystudentswillalsoassistteachers

to guide th

eir students to op

timize their learning in the often limited face to face time frame. From a theoretical

perspective, this study is expected to enhance the understanding of other researchers in the fields of educational

scienceonhumancognitivesystemsingeneral,andspecificallytheunderstandingofhowlearnerslearnusingvari

ous

cognitivestrategieseffectivel

y.Thus,theconditionwhichevolvesinthehumanmindduringthelearningprocesscan

bebetterunderstood.



REFERENCES

Afflerbach, P., Pearson, P. D., & Paris, S. H. (2008). Clarifying differences between reading skills and

reading strategies. The Reading Teacher, 61(5), 364-373.

Banikowski, A. K., & Alison K. (1999). Strategies to enhance memory based on brain research. Focus

on Exceptional Children, 32(2).

Gilchrist, A. L., & Cowan, N. (2012). Chunking. In V. Ramachandran (Ed.), The encyclopedia of human

behavior (2nd ed., pp. 476-483). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Miller G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity for

processing information. Psychological Review, 63, 81-97.

Mori, S. (2010). Second-year university students’ perceived accounts for improvement in English. Kinki

University English Journal, 5, 15-30.

West, C., Farmer, J., & Wolff, P. (1991). Instructional design: Implications from cognitive science.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Zhou, G. D. (2005). A chunking strategy towards unknown word detection in Chinese word

segmentation. Singapore: Institute for Info Comm Research.

