Presentation for EDUC 9733

1. SELF-
REGULATION
BASED ON: MACLELLAN, E. & SODEN, R. (2006).
‘FACILITATING SELF-REGULATION IN HIGHER
EDUCATION THROUGH SELF-REPORT.’ LEARNING
ENVIRONMENTS RESEARCH. 9: 95-110
By Ronald Platt, 2045991EDUC 9733

2. Introduction
 Learning consistent with a social-constructivist
perspective, an ‘active and self-directed
process in which learners build or construct
internal representations that are personal
interpretations of their learning experiences.’
(p95)
 Teaching: Knowledge of how learning occurs:
‘unless the learner actually wants to learn ...
and unless the learner engages in activities to
progress the learning ... learning is not likely to
take place.’ (p96)

3. Academic Self-Regulation
 Cyclical process, ‘not hierarchical, thereby
allowing the possibility of phases operating
simultaneously and dynamically.’ (p97)
Forethought:
Analyse
Performance:
Control
Observe
Self
Reflection:
Evaluate

4. Self-Regulation versus Meta-
cognition
 Literature isn’t clear on the behavioural/
psychological link between self-regulation and
metacognition:
‘It is therefore important in the context of
higher education generally that tutors, who
might not themselves research student
motivation and learning, understand self-
regulation in a way that they can readily
harness in their own teaching contexts.’ (p98)

5. Accessing and Measuring Self-
Regulation
 Self-Regulation as event:
‘appropriate measures would include think
aloud protocols, error-detection tasks and
trace methodologies as these measures focus
on the thoughts and cognitive processes of
individual learners when carrying out
particular, and possibly unique, tasks.’ (pp98-
99)
 Self-Regulation as aptitude:
‘then self-report questionnaires or structured
interviews are appropriate measures.’ (p99)

6. Purpose of Study
 Explore self-regulation ‘as an aptitude amenable
to influence’ (p99)
 Method Design: University students instructed in
alignment between learning material and self-
regulatory prompts. The self-regulation measure
was used to gather data pre and post intervention:
‘For the 15 items in each scale of the
questionnaire, participants were invited to indicate
the frequency – Never, Sometimes, Frequently, All
the Time – with which they engaged in each of the
behaviours.’(p100)

7. Intervention Procedure
 ‘Understanding Your Learning.’ (Compulsory course
administered to Students enrolled in Primary teaching
course in a Scottish University)
 ‘The module comprised specified and additional
reading, lectures (to the entire cohort) and discussion
groups (of about 20 students) in which students were
required to engage in a range of learning tasks to
transform (through applying or concretising,
memorising or rehearsing, critiquing, analysing,
relating or structuring, selecting or summarising) ideas
that they had read or heard about.’ (p101)
 Participants given self-regulatory prompts they could
refer to when clarification was required.

8. -Self-regulatory
prompts given
to participants
of the study.
(p101)

9. Results
 Pre-test compared to post-test:
‘support the conclusion that the intervention
influenced the three main elements of self-
regulation. In other words, students reported
significantly increased awareness of, and
engagement with, sets of behaviours that are
thought to constitute self-regulation.’ (pp102-3)

10. Limitations
 Resource constraints prevented comparison with
a control group.
 Despite the reported difference, it remains unclear
how effective the intervention was in facilitating
this difference.
 ‘For scientific purposes, it is clearly important to
understand self-regulation in more detail but, for
pedagogic purposes, it is sufficient to be
persuaded that the differences evidenced in this
study have a robustness that warrants continued
examination of the intervention.’ (p103)

11. Discussion
 Expertise: Having been immersed in the
learning, students were likely to develop
expertise in the area of self-regulation.
 Pedagogy: ‘Without pedagogical content
knowledge, tutors are unable to help students
to learn when, where and why to use content
knowledge.’ (p104)
 Personal Epistemology: Student’s own beliefs
about how they learn influence the learning
outcomes.

12. Conclusion
 ‘the intervention did not engender a helpless
response but made clear that self-regulated
learning is neither easy nor automatic and can
be demanding in terms of time and effort.’
(p106)
 ‘it is the learners’ perceptions of their
involvement in both behaviour and context ...
that are the focus of self-regulatory activity.’
(p107)

13. That Reference Again...
 Maclellan, E. & Soden, R. (2006).
‘Facilitating Self-Regulation in Higher
Education Through Self-Report.’ Learning
Environments Research. 9: 95-110