Making mistakes is no longer considered as mistakes. Rather, it is "respected" and described as a means of learning. And older adult brains may get a better edge in the learning process via trial and error method compared to younger brains. This is what researchers at the Rotman Research Institute in Toronto have found out.
The findings of this recent study contradict a previously established concept which suggests that making mistakes while learning impairs the memory performance of older adults. The same concept goes on to comment that older adults learn better through errorless, passive form of learning.
Researchers have suggested that older adults can learn from errors in those cases which involve conceptual information and where they can draw out a significant relationship between the errors committed by them and the correct information which are expected to remember.
The study, intended to evaluate the benefits of Trial-and-Error Learning, TEL, against Errorless Learning, EL, consisted of two groups of younger adults and older adults. The younger adults were in their 20s while the older adults had an average age of 70 years.
The participants were presented with a meaning cue such as a type of tooth. In the EL state, the correct word, molar tooth, was presented to the subjects. In the TEL state, only the cue was presented and the subjects were asked to make guesses. Then the exact answer was shown to them. After some time, the subjects were made to take part in a memory test which required them to recall the background in which they came to learn the words.
In both the cases, the subjects recalled the learning framework of the target words better when they were learnt through trial-and-error methods in comparison to the EL state. And this was observed to a greater extent in case of older adults, whose performance benefited by as much as 2.5 times compared to their younger companions.
The research findings may have important propositions in the area of methods of classroom teaching for older adults. This will also provide some valuable inputs for the rehabilitation methods targeted towards delaying age-related cognitive impairment.
