METACOGNITION AND SELF-REGULATED LEARNING

Self-regulated learning is “an active, constructive process whereby students learn to set goals and then to monitor, regulate, and control their cognition, motivation, and behavior within the context of opportunities afforded by the environment. Pintrich’s (2000) framework for self-regulated learning can inform every discipline, about the dynamics and potential strategies involved in the processes of effective teaching and learning.

Self-regulation studies began when social cognitive researchers in the early 1960s examined the development of self-control in children through response inhibition, self-regulatory standards, and delay of gratification. The resulting framework for self-regulation embraced the interaction of personal, behavioral, and environmental factors. Self-control studies were also conducted with adults in the early 1960s, designed to examine the influences of self-reward. Self-regulation research has since focused on motivation, health, mental health, physical skills, career development, decision-making, and, most notable for this session, academic performance and success (Zimmerman, 1990) as self-regulated learning (SRL).

Since the mid-1980s, SRL investigators examined the question: "How do students progress toward mastery of their own learning." One answer is that self-regulated learners are metacognitively, motivationally, and behaviorally active participants in their own learning process. They self-generate those thoughts, feelings, and actions helpful to attaining their learning goals. SRL research that benefits classroom practice informs how students are able to engage, modify, and persist with specific learning strategies and efforts, as individuals and within social contexts. Self-regulated learning theorists believe that learning requires that students move toward being proactive and engaged in their learning, and that learning does not happen to them, but by them.