Self-regulated learning is one of the domains of self-regulation, and is aligned most closely with educational aims. Broadly speaking, it refers to learning that is guided by metacognition, strategic action, and motivation to learn. A self-regulated learner "monitors, directs, and regulates actions toward goals of information acquisition, expanding expertise, and self-improvement”. In particular, self-regulated learners are cognizant of their academic strengths and weaknesses, and they have a repertoire of strategies they appropriately apply to tackle the day-to-day challenges of academic tasks. These learners hold incremental beliefs about intelligence and attribute their successes or failures to factors within their control. Finally, self-regulated learners take on challenging tasks, practice their learning, develop a deep understanding of subject matter, and exert effort will give rise to academic success. In part, these characteristics may help to explain why self-regulated learners usually exhibit a high sense of self-efficacy. In the educational psychology literature, researchers have linked these characteristics to success in and beyond school. Self regulated learners are successful because they control their learning environment. They exert this control by directing and regulating their own actions toward their learning goals. Self regulated learning should be used in three different phases of learning. The first phase is during the initial learning, the second phase is when troubleshooting a problem encountered during learning and the third phase is when they are trying to teach others.
Phases of self-regulation
According to Winne and Hadwin, self-regulation unfolds over “four flexibly sequenced phases of recursive cognition.” These phases are task perception, goal setting and planning, enacting, and adaptation. Zimmerman suggested that self-regulated learning process has three stages:
Forethought, learners' preparing work before performance on their studying;
Volitional control, which is also called "performance control", occurs in the learning process. It involves learners attention and willpower;
Self-reflection, happens in the final stage when learners review their performance toward final goals. At the same time, focusing on their learning strategies during the process is also efficient for their final outcomes.
Social cognitive perspective
Self-regulation from the social cognitive perspective looks at the triadic interaction among the person, his or her behavior, and the environment. Zimmerman et al. specified three important characteristics of self-regulated learning:
self-observation ; seen as the most important of these processes
self-judgment and
self-reactions.
To the extent that one accurately reflects about one's progress towards a learning goal, and appropriately adjusts the actions to be performed in order to maximize performance and foreseeable outcome; effectively, at this point one'self has become self-regulated. During a student's school career the primary goal of teachers is to produce self-regulated learners by using such theories as Information Processing Model. By storing the information into long-term memory the learner can retrieve it upon demand and apply to tasks, becoming a self-regulated learner.
Winne & Marx posited that motivational thoughts and beliefs are governed by the basic principles of cognitive psychology, which should be conceived in information-processing terms. Motivation plays a major role in self-regulated learning. Motivation is needed to apply effort and continue on when faced with difficulty. Control also plays a role in self-regulated learning as it helps the learner stay on track in reaching their learning goal and avoid being distracted from things that stand in the way of the learning goal.
Student performance perspective
Lovett, Meyer and Thille observed comparable student performance between instructor-led and self-regulated learning environments. In a subsequent study, self-regulated learning was shown to enable accelerated learning while maintaining long-term retention rates. Cassandra B. Whyte noted the importance of internal locus of control tendencies on successful academic performance, also compatible with self-regulated learning. Whyte recognized and appreciated external factors, to include the benefit of working with a good teacher, while encouraging self-regulated hard work, skill building, and a positive attitude to perform better in academic situations. To increase positive attitudes and academic performance, expert learners should be created. Expert learners develop self-regulated learning strategies. One of these strategies is the ability to develop and ask questions and use these questions to expand on their own prior knowledge. This technique allows the learners to test the true understanding of their knowledge and make correction about content areas that have a misunderstanding. When learners engage in questioning, it forces them to be more actively engaged in their learning. It also allows them to self analyze and determine their level of comprehension. This active engagement allows the learner to organize concepts into existing schemas. Through the use of questions, learners can accommodate and then assimilate their new knowledge with existing schema. This process allows the learner to solve novel problems and when the existing schema does not work on the novel problem the learner must reevaluate and assess their level of understanding.
Application in practice
There are also many practical applications for self-regulated learning in schools and classrooms today. Paris and Paris state there are three main areas of direct application in classrooms: literacy instruction, cognitive engagement, and self-assessment. In the area of literacy instruction, educators can teach students the skills necessary to lead them to become self-regulated learners by using strategies such as reciprocal teaching, open-ended tasks, and project-based learning. Other tasks that promote self-regulated learning are authentic assessments, autonomy-based assignments, and portfolios. These strategies are student-centered and inquiry-based, which cause students to gradually become more autonomous, creating an environment of self-regulated learning. However, students do not simply need to know the strategies, but they need to realize the importance of utilizing them in order to experience academic success. According to Dweck and Master, "Students use of learning strategies – and their continued use of them in the face of difficulty – is based on the beliefs that these strategies are necessary for learning, and that they are effective ways of overcoming obstacles." Students who are not self-regulated learners may daydream, rarely complete assignments or forget assignments completely. Those who do practice self-regulation ask questions, take notes, allocate their time effectively, and use resources available to them. Pajares lists several practices of successful students that Zimmerman and his colleagues developed in his chapter of Motivation and Self-Regulated Learning: Theory, Research, and Applications. These behaviors include, but are not limited to, the following: finishing homework assignments by deadlines, studying when there are other interesting things to do, concentrating on school subjects, taking useful class notes of class instruction, using the library for information for class assignments, effectively planning schoolwork, effectively organizing schoolwork, remembering information presented in class and textbooks, arranging a place to study at home without distractions, motivating oneself to do schoolwork, and participating in class discussions. Examples of self-regulated learning strategies in practice: Self-regulation has recently been studied in relation to certain age and socioeconomic groups. Programs such as target these different groups in order to increase effortful control in the classroom to enhance early learning.
Evaluation of SRL
A qualitative study reported that learners use SRL effectively when provided with enhanced guided notes instead of standard guided notes by the instructor. Moreover, students tend to use shallow level processing strategies such as rote memorization, rehearsal, and reviewing notes which are largely related to learning culture that they have exposed to. Social influences such as group work and social assistance as a means of developing SRL engaging in self-reflection, not only by receiving help but also by providing help, has also associated largely with the learning context. Therefore, it is a challenge for the researchers to develop a suitable framework to evaluate SRL, as learners tends to use particular strategies over the others with specific focus on SRL at different contexts.
