The Differential Impact of Active Learning on Children's Memory.

Successful active learning has often been quantified with respect to either the efficiency of information search or the accuracy of subsequent recall. In this article, we explored the hypothesis that children's memory is influenced by the types of information search strategies they implement, which may emphasize different aspects of the task stimuli. As a consequence, younger children's well-documented search inefficiency may turn out to be advantageous and result in better memory for some aspects of the task. In the current experiment, 5- to 10-year-old children (N = 124) played (active condition) or observed an agent play (passive condition) 20-questions games, and were then tested for their memory of several different aspects of the game both immediately after and a week later. Children showed overall improved recall in the active condition. Search efficiency was positively related to recall of the game's solution, but did not significantly impact performance on the other memory tests. Public Significance Statement: Understanding the differential effects of information search strategies on memory across development has immediate implications for educators. First, encouraging the development of more efficient information search skills in young children may have positive consequences for other aspects of cognition such as memory. Furthermore, our results show that active participation in information search benefits retention, and, therefore, could be a particularly useful educational tool for young children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]