UCLA

Latinx is the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States. As a result, the demographic landscape of colleges across the nation is also changing to reflect this new reality. However, many Latinx students are still not finishing college at the same rate as other ethnic groups. One area of research that is lacking regarding Latinx students is their experiences around learning, studying, and testing. While many studies illustrate the unique circumstances that Latinx students face when going to college (e.g., likely to be first-generation student, strong sense of family obligation, experiencing racial discrimination) few have explored how these experiences relate directly to cognitive processes associated with learning. The testing effect paradigm has been well studied by cognitive psychologists, who have demonstrated self-testing is a very effective way to learn. Although the testing effect has been well researched in predominately Caucasian college students, little is known about how well it translates to other groups. The present study aims to look at how the heterogenous educational experiences of Latinx students at a Southern California university relates to cognitive processes of learning. Using a well-studied cognitive phenomenon known as the Testing Effect, this study used survey measures, experimental tasks (a Flanker task and a Spatial Working Memory Task), and electroencephalography (EEG) to assess which sociocultural experiences relate to measures of cognitive processes involved in learning on a testing effect task. Results indicate that race-based stress may account for overall lower accuracy on the testing effect task, but Latinx participants benefitted from testing as evidenced by better accuracy and reactions times on test condition items. The Error Related Negativity and Feedback Related Negativity were not present in the testing effect task, but both the P300 and alpha power were present and associated with race-based stress. Findings from this study will contribute to a better understanding of the importance of studying the unique experiences of Latinx college students as they relate to cognitive processes involved in learning and the considerations students and educators may need to take before using testing as a learning tool.