About Self-Regulated Learning
Self-regulated learning refers to one’s ability to under- stand and control one’s learning environment. Self- regulation abilities include goal setting, self- monitoring, self-instruction, and self-reinforcement (Harris & Graham, 1999; Schraw, Crippen, & Hartley, 2006; Shunk, 1996). Self-regulation should not be confused with a mental ability or an academic perfor- mance skill. Instead, self-regulation is a self-directive process and set of behaviors whereby learners trans- form their mental abilities into skills (Zimmerman, Bonnor, & Kovach, 2002) and habits through a deve- lopmental process (Butler, 1995, 1998, 2002) that emerges from guided practice and feedback (Paris & Paris, 2001).
Elements of Self-Regulated Learning
Effective learners are self-regulating, analyzing task requirements, setting productive goals, and selecting, adapting or inventing strategies to achieve their objec- tives. These learners also monitor progress as they work thorough the task, managing intrusive emotions and waning motivation as well as adjusting strategies processed to foster success. These are the students who ask questions, take notes, and allocate their time and their resources in ways that help them to be in charge of their own learning (Paris & Paris, 2001).
Why Teach Self-Regulated Learning to Adults?
Good self-regulators have developed the skills and habits to be effective learners, exhibiting effective learning strategies, effort, and persistence. The key for instructors is to understand how to foster and train these skills in all students. This fact sheet offers some instructional strategies for adult education settings.
Self-regulated learning strategies help to prepare learners for lifelong learning and the important capaci- ty to transfer skills, knowledge, and abilities from one domain or setting to another.
What’s the Research?
In the 1980’s, the term self-regulated learning origi- nated from the increased focus on self-regulation in academic settings (Dinsmore, Alexander, & Loughlin, 2008). A large base of literature has been established on self-regulated learning since the mid-1980’s when researchers first began to look at how students be- come masters of their own learning processes (Zim- merman & Schunk, 2001). Today most models of self- regulated learning incorporate aspects of both meta- cognition and self-regulation focusing on self- monitoring (Dinsmore, Alexander, & Loughlin, 2008). Zimmerman and Schunk (2001; 2008) directly link motivation to self-regulation. According to these re- searchers, self-regulated students are those students who are metacognitively, motivationally, and behavi- orally active in their own learning processes and in achieving their own goals.
Recommended Instructional Strategies
When strategy instruction for academic learning is paired with self-regulation, called SRSD or self- regulated strategy development, learners become more confident at adapting strategies reflectively and flexibly within recursive cycles of task analysis, strate- gy use, and monitoring.
Many of the self-regulated learning strategies are use- ful across various content domains. Specifically, self- regulated learning consists of three components: cognition, metacognition, and motivation. The cognition component includes the skills and habits that are necessary to encode, memorize, and recall information as well as think critically. Within the meta- cognition component are skills that enable learners to understand and monitor their cognitive processes. The motivation component surfaces the beliefs and attitudes that affect the use and development of both the cognitive and metacognitive skills. Below are sug- gestions for how to develop self-regulation in the adult education classroom.