The present study sought to understand how two different training conditions, error management training and procedural error-avoidant training, influenced learners’ decisions about practice difficulty when learning a complex task. Goal orientation was examined as a moderator to this relationship. Other relationships were investigated to understand the effect of learner-controlled practice difficulty on self-regulatory processes as well as performance in an adaptive transfer trial. Results showed that self-evaluation activity played a key role in mediating the relationship between learner-controlled practice difficulty and performance in the adaptive transfer trial. Self-evaluation was also found to mediate the relationship between practice difficulty and strategic knowledge. In addition, performance goal orientation moderated the relationship between training design and learner-controlled practice difficulty such that participants in the procedural, error-avoidant condition chose higher levels of practice difficulty on average when mastery goal orientation was low, which suggests a beneficial matching effect for performance oriented individuals in procedural, error avoidant training conditions. Additional findings are discussed with regard to self-regulatory processes and training outcomes.
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