Children's self-regulated learning of movement sequences.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether developmental differences exist in childrens' use of self-regulatory strategies while learning supra-memory-span movement sequences. Grade 1 and Grade 4 children were asked to study two movement sequences long enough to be absolutely certain that they would be able to recall the entire sequences correctly. The older group displayed superior recall readiness in comparison to the younger group. Older children used a greater variety of strategies and also displayed significantly greater numbers of strategy orchestration patterns. In addition, Grade 4 children more frequently used overt encoding and self-checking strategies. Further, evidence suggests that Grade 4 children used language to encode movement components or to regulate their own learning more frequently than Grade 1 children.