Long-Term Retention of Vocabulary After Keyword and Context Learning

Long-term retention of new vocabulary meanings acquired through keyword or semantic-context methods was assessed in two experiments. College students learned a list of 30 English vocabulary-meaning pairs until all meanings could be correctly recalled when they were given the vocabulary words. Subjects were again tested on cued-recall performance 1 week later. Although the keyword method facilitated initial learning of the vocabulary meanings, there were no differences in long-term retention as a function of learning method.