Study time allocation becomes more strategic with age: older learners allocate relatively more time to difficult items, and the easy-difficult allocation gap is larger in the untimed condition¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2021 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? Mean study time was higher in the untimed condition and for difficult items, and with growing age participants separated less time on easy items and more time on difficult items. → Gönül 2021

Evidence¶

Gönül 2021¶

Gönül, G., Tsalas, N., Paulus, M. (2021). The effect of time pressure on metacognitive control: developmental changes in self-regulation and efficiency during learning. Metacognition and Learning. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-021-09262-y

q3 · i? · causal · r2

GLMM on mean study time in the study time allocation experiment. The best-fit model also included an age group by difficulty interaction, F(2, 722) = 8.654, p < 0.001, and a condition by difficulty interaction, F(2, 722) = 30.820, p < 0.001.

"The main effect of condition, F(1, 722) = 472.275, p < 0.001, and item difficulty, F(1, 722) = 321.829, p < 0.001, were significant, with more time invested into items in untimed condition than timed condition, and less time being allocated to easy items than difficulty items, respectively."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Older adults allocate proportionally more study time to easy and medium items while younger adults allocate more to difficult items, yet older adults recall less despite studying more — reports the opposite
• Recall is higher in untimed than timed conditions and for easy than difficult items, with a three-way age-by-condition-by-difficulty interaction driven by adults outperforming 10-year-olds on timed difficult items — related
• Judgments of learning are higher for easy than difficult items at all ages and increase with age, confirming the difficulty manipulation aligned with subjective difficulty — related
• Mild time pressure increases learning efficiency: recall per mean second of study time is higher in the timed than the untimed condition for all age groups — related
• Time pressure weakens monitoring-based self-regulation of study time: gamma correlations between judgments of learning and study time are stronger in the untimed than the timed condition — related
• Self-regulation of study time increases with age: adults exceed 14-year-olds, who exceed 10-year-olds, though self-regulation is already established at age 10 — related
• Learning efficiency increases with age, with adults and 14-year-olds more efficient than 10-year-olds, and no age-by-condition interaction — related
• Younger and older adults select study items in an easy-to-difficult order, consistent with the region of proximal learning model — related