The region of proximal learning heuristic and adult age differences in self-regulated learning

Younger, middle-aged, and older adults were asked to study 36 Chinese-English vocabulary pairs of different complexity levels from grids where presentation order was randomized and no information about item complexity was provided. Of interest was whether participants' item selection and study time allocation would initially favor simple items, as predicted by Metcalfe's (2002) region of proximal learning (RPL) model, or complex items, as suggested by the discrepancy reduction model (DRM; Nelson & Leonesio, 1988), when participants had to select items based on something other than similarity to English. Each age group gauged item complexity similarly and made a similar use of the RPL heuristic in initial selection and study behaviors. However, older adults were more likely to restudy and allocate more time to simpler items, suggesting that, at least for restudy, older adults particularly relied on the RPL heuristic. Results are discussed in terms of self-regulated learning models.