Children Strategically Decide What to Practice

Adjusting practice to different goals and characteristics is key to learning, but its development remains unclear. Across 2 preregistered experiments, 190 4-to-8-year-olds (106 female; mostly White; data collection: December 2021–September 2022) and 31 adults played an easy and a difficult game, then chose one to practice before a test on either the easy, difficult, or a randomly chosen game. All children adjusted their active practice choices to condition. When the test game was known, they practiced that game. However, when the test game was randomly chosen, only children 6+ and adults practiced the difficult game, while younger children only showed a trending effect. This suggests that the ability to prepare for uncertainty may develop between ages 4 and 6.