Working Memory and Academic Performance

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Working Memory and Academic Performance
Introduction
One of the most commonly studied areas of the mind is how it influences the performance of students in schools. Psychology is a branch of science that studies the mind, how it works, and its functions. Aside from the behavioral aspect of being human, it also involves cognitive functions. In this paper, the concept of working memory under cognitive psychology will be discussed in relation to academic performance.
Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive psychology is the study of how the mind processes information. All the processes involved with the mind are memory, attention, learning, problem-solving, language, and perception. An aspect of cognitive psychology helps in the improvement of human knowledge regarding the formation, storage, and recall of information and memories. Memory is an essential aspect of cognitive psychology because it helps an individual retain the information that is received from the environment. It is also involved in education because it is a significant factor that determines whether an individual has learned something. Usually, memory is trained by practicing repeated retrievals of information (Karpicke, 2016).
Working Memory
Working memory is one of the commonly used terms in psychology. This refers to the temporary storage of a small amount of information for cognitive tasks. It is also associated with the unitary short-term memory system. Working memory is necessary for tasks such as learning, reasoning, language comprehension, etc. (Baddeley, 1992). Although working memory is associated with short-term memory, it should be emphasized that these two are different, and the process involved in interpreting, modifying, and making sense of the information that is stored in short-term memory is how working memory works. In testing the working memory, short-term memory is needed along with a variety of skills such as focus and attention. However, the processing and retrieval with the current level of attention, the available time during the test, and the strategy formulated by the individual, such as the repetition of an entry or saying it out loud, is an example of using working memory and how it functions (Stangor & Walinga, 2019).
The three components of working memory are the central executive, the visuospatial sketchpad, and the phonological loop.
The central executive is considered as the control system, while the other two components are storage systems. The central executive is more complex and is involved in regulating the connection of long-term memory and working memory. An example of the central executive’s function is through the episodic buffer, a subsystem of the central executive that enables an individual to memorize a phrase that consists of 15 words even though the phonological loop’s capacity is only at seven words. To further explain this, the episodic buffer provides meaning by retrieving background information from long-term memory, enabling the individual to create a relationship between the words in the phrase (Gradinger, 2013).
The visuospatial sketchpad is for storing visual and spatial information that...