Use Of Mindfulness Training On A Learning Task - 1537 Words

In the journal article, The Influence of a Brief Mindfulness Exercise on Encoding of Novel Words in Female College Students, published in Mindfulness, Bonamo, Legerski, Thomas (2015) designed a study to see if the cognitive benefits associated with mindfulness training found by previous research would lead to increased performance on a learning task. To support the purpose of the study, the researchers used the existing literature on mindfulness that shows converging evidence for mindfulness training’s capacity to improve attention, working memory, and self-regulation (Beauchemin, Hutchins, Patterson, 2008; Chan Woollacott, 2007; Hà ¶lzel et al. 2011). However, most previous research has evaluated the effects of extensive mindfulness†¦show more content†¦Because of the large enough sample included in the study, the unequal sample sizes in the conditions is not a source of major concern. In this design, the condition of the participants would be considered a three level independent variable because it is what is being manipulated by the researchers in the experiment. The participants completed the experiment individually or in a small group with other participants (up to five participants) in the same condition. Since there were a different number of participants in each condition that completed the experiment individually or in a group, this aspect of the design could be concerning by potentially introducing error into the measurement if completing the experiment individually or in a group has a differential effect across conditions. The experiment began with the participants completing a series of questionnaires, including a demographic survey, and measures for state and trait anxiety, depression, ADHD, and trait mindfulness. Specifically, state and trait anxiety were measured using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), depression was measured with The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, NIMH (CES-D), the six most predic tive items of the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS-v1.1) were used to assess attentional problems, and trait mindfulness was measured assessed with the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ).