Why is it important that teens learn from their actions?

Imagine you're at a carnival and you want to win a big stuffed animal. You play different games and, if you're successful, you collect tickets. But you don't care about the tickets themselves, you care about the big stuffed animal they can buy.

And you'll probably stick to the easier games to earn as many tickets as possible.

Such experiences can be called purposeful learning, says Juliet Davidow, an associate professor of psychology at Northeastern University.

"You experience something and then you learn from that experience, whether it's good or bad," she says. "That guides you in deciding whether you want to repeat that experience again."

Davidow, who directs the Learning and Brain Development Lab at Northeastern University, recently conducted a detailed review of multiple scientific experiments to determine how well scientists understand goal-directed learning in adolescents. She was able to identify findings that could be useful for teenagers today. The findings were published in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

For the past 20 to 30 years, Davidow says, research on brain development has focused largely on the challenges and risks of adolescence—the period from about age 10 to 20—rather than on the power and purpose of adolescence itself.

“What gets lost in the science is how many benefits this stage of life actually has,” she says. “It’s an incredible time for growth, for figuring out who you are, what’s important to you, and what kind of adult you want to be in the world.”

After the first decade of life, children still have a lot to learn before they become adults, Davidow says. Purposeful learning is one of the central processes that occurs during this period, she says.

Teens learn to perform actions that allow them to achieve the results they want, such as playing easier carnival games. It's a gradual, experimental, trial-and-error learning process, Davidow says.

Historically, purposeful learning included skills like hunting, gathering, and caring for children, she says. But today, the brain must deal with the modern world and the current sociocultural climate.

Modern goal-directed learning involves more abstract behaviors, Davidow says, such as the clicks and swipes needed to play music that evokes desired emotions.

Teens learn faster than adults, especially if they are learning something that is important to them rather than something they are told to learn.

Motivation is a big part of goal-oriented learning. For it to work, the goal must be desirable, Davidow says.

And a good result encourages people to repeat the activity again.

"The brain says, 'Oh, you went to the candy machine, you pressed the button, and the candy fell out. Try pressing that button again,'" Davidow says.

Besides motivation, surprise is another important part of the learning process.

"If you do something and the outcome is unexpected, your brain will grab onto that information and try to do something with it," Davidow says.

But in order to be surprised, a person must first have an expectation, she says, otherwise he cannot be surprised.

When something doesn't go as expected, the brain tries to figure out why. This creates a cascade of goal-directed learning, Davidow says.

So, for example, parents or teachers might ask a child what they think will happen before the child tries something.

"If the outcome is unexpected, it will reinforce learning," Davidow says.

Sometimes parents think their teens are seeking out risky experiences that could lead to bad outcomes, she says.

"But maybe they're just looking for new experiences," Davidow says.

"They are looking for experience, and it turns out that the ones they find are often risky and dangerous."

Instead, she says, adults can create situations that allow teens to safely explore the results—such as sending them into the woods with supervision.

“If kids don’t try things, they’ll never get into that positive cycle,” Davidow says. “They won’t learn that trying new things is fun or makes their brains happier.”