The Emergence of an Active Learning Advantage for Episodic Memory

• In Event: 3-225 - Psychology Meets Education: How Children Gain from Self-regulated Learning

Integrative Statement

Educators often claim that learning should be active and self-regulated such that students control what and how they learn. Despite the ubiquity of this view, there remains a poor understanding of why self-regulated learning works and how its efficacy depends on the characteristics of the learner. Recent studies with adults have shown that simple forms of control over the order and pacing of study lead to enhanced episodic memory relative to passive, “yoked” observation of the same information. Although such advantages have been demonstrated in a variety of contexts in adults, it is unclear when enhancements from active control emerge during development.

We investigated whether self-regulated control improves episodic memory in 5- to 10-year-olds. Children played a game in which they tried to memorize arrays of commonplace objects (Figure 1). For half of the materials participants decided the order and pacing of study (active condition). For the other half, they passively observed the study sequence generated by another participant (yoked condition). Recognition memory was tested immediately following study and after a week delay.

52 5- to 8-year-old children participated in Experiment 1. A higher proportion of objects were correctly recognized (Figure 2A) when studied in the active condition in both test (relative odds ratio, OR = 1.32 [1.12, 1.56]) and retest (OR = 1.34 [1.12,1.59]). In addition, there was a significant age X condition interaction (OR = .80 [.71, .91]) such that the gap between self-regulated and yoked study increased for older children. At age 6 there was no difference in recognition between self-regulated and yoked study (test: OR = 1.12 [.93, 1.35]; retest: OR = 1.13 [.93, 1.37]), whereas at age 8 actively studied objects were more likely to be recognized (test: OR = 1.66 [1.35, 2.05]; retest: OR = 1.68 [1.35, 2.10]), a significant age-related increase in the advantage from active study (OR = 1.49 [1.19, 1.85]).
Experiment 2 was a replication involving another 49 4- to 10-year-old children. In addition, since self-regulated control has been associated with improved spatial memory in a similar paradigm in adults, we included a spatial recall test for recognized objects. Recognition accuracy (Figure 2B) was higher for actively studied objects (test: OR = 1.98 [1.66, 2.37]; retest (OR = 1.91 [1.58,2.31]). Recognition increased with age (OR = 2.00 [1.54, 2.60]) but there was a negative age X condition interaction (OR = 0.76 [0.66, 0.87]) such that yoked performance declined among older children. A 2-year age difference was again associated with a significant increase in the advantage from active study (OR = 1.43 [1.20, 1.71]). Although spatial recall increased with age (OR = 1.77 [1.42, 2.18]) it was unrelated to study condition (OR = 1.06 [.74, 1.51]).

Taken together, our findings show that the episodic memory advantage from active learning emerges across childhood, potentially due to underlying developmental changes in executive functioning and metacognitive control. Whereas older children appear to benefit from the opportunity to self-regulate study, younger learners may be less effective at using that freedom to direct their own learning experience.

Authors

• Douglas Markant, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
  Presenting Author

• Todd Gureckis, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Fei Xu, University of California-Berkeley
  Non-Presenting Author

• Azzurra Ruggeri, Max-Planck-Institute for Human Development Berlin; Technical University Munich (School of Education)
  Non-Presenting Author