What is SRL?

What is SRL?

Description on Solo Task

I attended the lecture on What is SRL?  by Sanna Järvelä. I read the three articles and attempted to summarize the articles to help me understand what SRL is all about. I am a novice in the field of Education and I seek to knowledgeable in this field so  I took it upon myself to read and summaries the articles in order to understand. I know is going to take a considerable amount of time but I am willing to put in the effort because I believe its worth it. I came to a conclusion on two ideas I consider important and I used the ICE to elaborate further. 

Topics in the Articles Read

Common topics in the three articles

 

Goals
Long Term: To be an expert in Self-Regulated Learning
Short Term: To understand what self-regulated learning is?

Confidence of Achieving goals
Optimistic

Social Cognitive Theoretical Perspective of Self-Regulation 

Usher, E.L. and Schunk D.H. (2018)

Social cognitive theory of self-regulation

Humans can regulate themselves because they can choose their own pathway, they can plan and set goals, they can reflect adjust their direction if there is a need to. Adjusting one’s direction implies that there exist some standards against which a comparison is made to identify deviations and make the necessary changes. Self-regulation from the social cognitive theory perspective specifies the self-sub-system of humans is composed of cognitive structures for perceiving, assessing, likening, and judging oneself. Self-efficacy and the environment affect the extent to which one can regulate his or her behavior and learning. Though self-efficacy and environment are determinants, are regulated.

Sub-functions of self-regulated learning

To self-regulate a person involves the ability to observe, evaluate and react oneself. Self-observation: becoming aware of the nature of a task, the workload involved, time and effort needed to accomplish a task. Knowledge of this information activates self-direction. Self-evaluation involves comparing one’s self against standards set by the individual, parents, friends, family, etc. Self-reaction of one’s thoughts and actions aids self-direction. It influences one’s drive to achieve a goal. A reward or the thought of accomplishing something in life can motivate one towards to achieve set goals.

Cyclical nature of self-regulation and performance

Self-regulation is a cycle composed of Performance, self-regulatory sub-functions, Forethought, and reflection. The Forethought and reflection phases in Usher and Shunk's cycle is similar to Pintrich (2000)’s phases of self-regulation. Though it’s a cycle, a starting point is not obvious due to its complexity but the continuous regulation makes its endless loop obvious. The interaction between the phases (i.e. performance, sub-functions, Forethought, reflection) may account for the complexity. Personally, when I view the Forethought phase as a starting point because understanding the value of the task, setting goals, finding reasons why the task is important and the need to achieve the set goals, and motivation are important. Being human means that I have the capability to self-observe, evaluate and react whiles learning. This implies that I can self-direct my learning depending on the kind of learning environment I find myself. Student-centered environments give a lot of room for self-direction. Learning also involves the use of cognitive structures and strategies (i.e. notetaking, summarizing, etc.) which is evident in the Performance phase.  Performance also includes monitoring one’s progress, which leads to reflecting on achievements and making attributions for success or failure. Success makes a person happy and proud of their achievement. On the other hand, failure makes a person sad, angry, and anxious. Regulation of emotions at the reflection phase is important as decisions on goals and strategies adjustment occur in this phase and the cycle continuous.

Development self-regulation competence

Self-regulation though, innate, it is a skill that can be developed or improved. A conscious and consistent effort to regulate oneself using any SRL model will equip one with this skill. Teachers, parents can guide students to acquire the skill.

Components of self-regulated learning

Research by Zimmerman and Bandura suggests that cognition, behavior, motivation, emotion, social, environment. Cognition involves thinking activities in the brain. It employs the use of short and long-term memory for storing and retrieving information. The use of cognitive resources is dependent on learner’s characteristics such age, motivation, expertise, environment (climate, set up, society) and nature of the task. Metacognition also determines ones cognitive self-regulation. Behavior includes organizing a conducive environment, time management, record keeping, seeking help, and reviewing one’s own work. Avoiding procrastination, excuses, and other addictive behavior are important in regulating oneself. Motivation as a driving power may be internal or external. Identifying a reason for learning or performing a task plays a huge role in motivation. The desire to help others, avoid failure and receive rewards (maybe self-rewards or external) are capable of motivating people. Before, during or after a task, people show emotions. These emotions affect how they accomplish a task. Regulating emotions affects the ability to succeed. As humans, people surround us. These people form part of a society. The society we choose to be a part of affects our success especially when challenges are encountered. It is essential to know when to seek help and from whom to seek help from. Many supporting societies or unions in schools and communities are there to support and cheer people on to accomplish their goals. Lastly, the environment also determines how self-regulation is performed. Because self-regulation consumes cognitive resources, a safe environment means that cognitive resources can be focused on the task itself not on creating a conducive environment.  

The Role of goal orientation in self-regulated learning 

Pintrich, P. R. (2000).

Phases and Areas for Self-Regulated Learning

Pintrich’s model of SRL is made up of four phases: Forethought, Planning and Activation, Monitoring, Control, and Reaction and Reflection. Together with the areas of regulation: cognition, motivation/affect, behavior, and context provides details on how self-regulation process work.

To regulate one’s cognition, the four phases of SRL are considered. In the Forethought and planning phase, the learner sets goals, activates prior relevant knowledge and metacognitive knowledge. At the onset of learning, a learner sets goals for topics to learn, time, and an outcome. The learner searches for prior knowledge that is related to the topic being learned in his or her memory. Metacognitive knowledge describes the cognitive tasks and strategies such as memorizing, thinking and reading that a learner uses to learn and achieve learning goals. In the Monitoring phase, the learner monitors their comprehension of what is been learned, studied or taught. Judgements of learning (JOL) and feeling of knowing (FOK) are strategies for monitoring comprehension of subject matter. The Control phase involves regulating both cognitive (thus memory, reasoning, thinking) and metacognitive activities (switching strategies, stop the use of a certain strategy) for adapting and changing their cognition. Cognitive reaction and reflection phase involves evaluating one’s self and finding reasons for one’s success or failure. Reflections and reactions may motivate the learner to work hard and be successful. The reverse is also possible.

Similar to the regulating one’s cognition, regulating one's motivation or affect involves the 4 phases. An assessment of one’s ability to perform a task leads to goal adjustment to keep the motivation to complete learning activities successfully. Ease of learning (EOL) is a means of determining one’s ability to perform a task based previous experience. A person’s interest, values, fears, and anxiety have an impact on the emotions and motivation to succeed. There is the need to monitor the belief, values, and emotions of a person as they perform a task as it affects their motivation to excel in their tasks. In controlling and regulating one's emotions, involves the use of strategies such self-talk to control anxiety or increase motivation, self-affirmation to reduce the value of the task, and defensive pessimism to motivate students to work hard and perform better. Learners may also apply self-handicapping strategies, which are not helpful for success. Also, learners react and reflect on their performance. In reflecting, learners attribute their success or failure to their behavior towards the task, the environmental conditions, and their self. Emotionally, they may feel happy, sad, mad, shame, anger towards themselves or their environment. Learners, when exposed and trained to use cognitive, motivational, affective, etc. strategies may opt to them to motivate themselves.

Another area Pintrich suggests for regulation is behavior. Regulation of behavior involves planning how much time and effort that will be put into a particular task. Time and effort management requires detailed planning to record behavior whiles doing the task. Record keeping provides information on performance for future changes in behavior if there is a need. Monitoring is essential when regulating behavior through record keeping of study times, diary of activities, etc. Monitoring is self-observation or experimentation. When one observes or monitor that the goal is challenging than perceived, a form a regulation will be increasing the time and effort to complete goals. Also, one can identify when and where to seek help. In some situations, persistence is key to regulating behavior.  Regulating and reflecting on one’s behavior involves thinking about one’s reaction to situations and deciding to make a change in future.

Regulating instructions related to task and classroom behavior forms part of regulating context of SRL. The kind of atmosphere a teacher maintains in the classroom activates reactions among students, how students view a task, their attitude in class, etc. Monitoring and controlling help to create a conducive environment in the class for teaching and learning purposes. It may be essential to keep a record of rules for a task, classroom behavior and climate to monitor and make changes that will positively influence student learning.  Controls can be put in place to regulate aspects of the classroom norms. Contextual reactions and regulation entail student’s evaluation of classroom norms and tasks instructions to identify what is working and what is not with the goal of creating and maintaining healthy standards in the classroom.  

Goal Orientation, approaches and what to avoid.

Targets and purpose goals or task-specific and goal orientations. The difference in the two goals lies in the outcome the learner expects. Many of the models of goal orientation have two classifications. One related to mastering a skill thus becoming competent at something (task-specific). Learners seek to learn, understand, improve and progress. The other is related to pleasing oneself, demonstrating superiority and self-worth (performance or target specific). According to Pintrich, research has shown that learners with mastery goals regulate their thinking, learning, and understanding. Such students adopted the use of strategies such paraphrasing, summarizing, outlining, concept maps for learning. It can be speculated that mastery-oriented students are successful but no link has been established mastery and problem solving and other thinking strategies. Hence the possibility of obtaining mastery but unable to solve problems. A possible gap that can be bridged by including design thinking into the curriculum. Also, design thinking which seeks to equip students to solve all types of problems can be a mastery or competence that students aim to attain. If that is the case then a mastery-oriented student can be acquired problem-solving, thinking strategies and SRL strategies to regulate learning. Mastery goal is known to be important for self-efficacy, task value, interest, attributions and affect Wolters (1998) suggests that mastery-oriented students regulate their motivation with rewards and external regulators. Their interest, task value, and intrinsic motivation are not enough to gear them towards hence an external reward keeps them focused on their goal. But is it a good thing? How can interest be monitored, controlled, and regulated to motivate them to achieve mastery? Mastery-orientation pushes to seek help when they are stuck. In general, mastery-oriented students are able to use self-regulation strategies to regulate their cognition, motivation or affect, behavior and contextual environment. Pintrich stated in his paper that not much research has been done on performance-oriented goals. Based on the principles of SRL and the mastery-oriented goals, it can be assumed that there is a degree of regulation of cognition, motivation, behavior, and context. From Pintrich’s phases and areas for SRL, it can be said that performance-oriented leaners set goals and plan how to achieve their goals. They plan to use cognitive and metacognitive strategies to achieve their goal. They observe and monitor their goals and make adapt strategies that support their goals which may not be very effective. Reaction and reflection maybe evident. Such learner is motivated internally by their goal and probably some recognition and reward they may receive for their achievement. One important thing that needs attention is their emotions. How do they control them when things do not turn out like they expect. How do they relate to their colleagues in their bad emotional state? Concerning behavior, a considerable amount of time and effort maybe invested but maladaptive strategies may be used to decrease time or effort. Such a learner may persist until goals are achieved. Can their motivation and willingness be regulated such that not only the goal is achieved but the learner learns?

A Social Cognitive View of Self-Regulated Academic Learning

Barry J. Zimmerman

Social Cognitive Assumptions

Self-regulated learning is encompassed of personal processes, environmental conditions, and behavior of a person. According to Bandura (1986), human behavior stems from a person’s experiences and the conditions in his or her environment. The environment determines the extent to which a learner can self-regulated her learning. Self-regulated learning is self-initiated through continuous evaluation of the learner’s actions. Students can regulate the environment to a certain degree their learning environment. It is possible to regulate where to study when to study and who to study with. To do this, students must set goals they intend to achieve. As they work to achieve their goals, they must record how successful or unsuccessful they are in the environment they find themselves to make the decision in choosing the environment. Zimmerman’s triadic model assumes that learners can regulate their learning using learning strategies, setting goals, monitoring and feedback to know if the strategies are suitable for achieving the set goals. A learner’s self-efficacy has an impact on his determination to succeed regardless of challenges and obstacles. Self-regulation involves observing oneself, judging oneself and one’s reaction to learning outcomes or results. How the learner is able to regulate emotions of learning outcomes.

Determinants of self-regulation

Self-regulation is the ability of a learner to regulate and control self, behavior, and environment. When one’s self or behavior or environment is dominant, self-regulation is hindered. Knowledge of learning strategies, metacognitive decisions, and process, and results of learning guides students on which strategies work for them. At the onset of a task, goals are set. Long term and short term goals affect the motivation of the person performing the task. Hence, it is important to set goals that are feasible within a certain time period. Self-efficacy affects the nature of goals thus challenging or not. Self-regulation is also influenced by, self-observation, self-judgment, and self-reaction. Self-observation involves monitoring one’s performance systematically while working towards achieving goals. It also involves goal setting. A comparison of the performance of the set goals and performance is self-judgment. When a learner passes judgment on performance, the learner reacts to improve specific learning responses, personal learning styles or strategies and tries to model an environment that will be conducive for learning to improve performance. A positive reaction to performance empowers a learner to regulate behavior, environment from prior personal experience.

Self-regulated learning Strategies

They are strategies that a learner uses to accomplish learning goals and improve performance. SRL strategies include goal setting, self-evaluation, monitoring with some form of record keeping, information seeking and organizing, structuring the environment, rewarding or punishing, rehearsing or practicing and memorizing, help-seeking, and reviewing written notes or information.

ICE Notes 

Goal Orientation

After reading the article, a lot of ideas seems to crop up. Comparing my previous study experience and my study experience in the LET programme, I have come to value both mastery and performance goal orientations. In seeking to obtain mastery in a task, it is important to acquire not only theoretical knowledge but also problem-solving skills. Theoretical knowledge and problem-solving skills will equip the individual to solve the complex problems that exist in our environment. Performance goal orientation should be viewed by learners as a way to motivate themselves towards mastery but not a way to feel superior to colleagues. In fact, both orientations are sources of motivation.

Awareness of Self and Learning Strategies

Many a time, students are given instructions to do this or that without given enough reasons for the task. In my previous studies, I was not required to document anything related to my study. At the University of Oulu, almost all departments require students to summarize articles and keep a learning diary. Now my questions: Are students aware of the reasons why they must keep a diary for their learning? Are they aware the benefits they stand to get by keeping a diary? With regard to the LET programme, the lecturers and tutors have done their due diligence in making us aware the need to keep a diary so the onus is on us (students) to put it into practice. But what happens to the rest of the students? Many students including myself have used or are using learning Zimmerman's work but they are not aware of it. Awareness of themselves (strengths and weakness) and learning strategies can help students use strategies that will optimize their learning. An understanding of how I (people) learn is helping me to understand the reasons for my learning habits and the results I have obtained in my previous and current studies. I am also adjusting and adapting strategies to suit my learning needs. I believe I stand a better chance of regulating myself and helping people to be successful in their learning endeavors.

 

Reflections

My goal to read and summarize the articles was a challenge. It consumed a lot of time and I was exhausted😌. At certain points in doing the task, I almost gave up. Some concepts were hard to understand from the articles I read. Motivated by the desire to understand the concepts behind of SRL, I succeeded (still not an expert yet. certainly better than a novice😊). I am happy I have achieved the short-term goal I set but in future, I will certainly make changes to the approach (probably use more visual diagrams as this post contains too much text). I used. I aim toward improving my current understanding of the SRL literature and writing skills.  

References

• Bandura,A.(1986).Socialfoundationsofthoughtandaction: A social cognitive theory. EnglewoodCliffs ,NJ:Prentice-Hal.
• Pintrich, P. R. (2000). The Role of goal orientation in self-regulated learning. In M. Boekaerts, P. R. Pintrich, & M. Zeidner (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation (pp. 451–502). Academic Press. http://doi.org/10.1016/B978-012109890-2/50043-3
• Usher, E.L. & Schunk D.H. (2018) Social cognitive theoretical perspective of self-regulation. In Schunk D.H & Greene J.A. (Eds.), Handbook of Self-regulation of Learning and Performance 2 nd Ed.
• Zimmermann, B. J. (1989). A Social Cognitive View of Self-Regulated Academic Learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 81, No. 3, pp. 329-339.

·