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How can primary school students learn self-regulated learning strategies most effectively?: A meta-analysis on self-regulation training programmes

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Abstract

Recently, research has increasingly focused on fostering self-regulated learning amongst young children. To consider this trend, this article presents the results of a differentiated meta-analysis of 48 treatment comparisons resulting from 30 articles on enhancing self-regulated learning amongst primary school students. Based on recent models of self-regulated learning, which consider motivational, as well as cognitive, and metacognitive aspects [Boekaerts, M. (1999). Self-regulated learning: Where we are today. International Journal of Educational research, 31(6), 445–457], the effects of self-regulated learning on academic achievement, on cognitive and metacognitive strategy application, as well as on motivation were analyzed. As the results show, self-regulated learning training programmes proved to be effective, even at primary school level. Subsequent analysis tested for the effects of several moderator variables, which consisted of study features and training characteristics. Regarding factors that concern the content of the treatment, the impact of the theoretical background that underlies the intervention was tested, as well as the type of cognitive, metacognitive, or motivational strategy which were instructed, and if group work was used as instruction method. Training context related factors, which were included in the analyses consisted of students’ grade level, the length of the training, if teachers or researchers directed the intervention, as well as the school subject in which context the training took place. Following the results of these analyses, a list with the most effective training characteristics was provided.

Introduction

Dramatic changes in the availability of information, resulting from an exponentially growing amount of knowledge, as well as the rapid development of technology, have necessitated new approaches for information handling and treatment. New requirements concerning key competences of learners from this knowledge-based society have resulted in a large amount of research on how to make learning more efficient. Self-regulated learning is a construct that has developed during the last 30 years in order to meet these demands (Winne, 2005). Self-regulated learners dispose of the skills to learn effectively both in school and later in life. As such, self-regulated learning has been highly praised as the key competence to initiate and maintain lifelong learning (see e.g., EU Council, 2002). Its introduction has gone along with a paradigm shift in research on learning and instruction, leading to a focus on the learner as an active participant in the learning process. The concept of self-regulated learning has been brought up as a synthesis between research on how learning functions – focusing on the learner's cognitive and motivational processes (e.g., Boekaerts, 1999, Pintrich, 1999) – and research on how instruction functions—focusing on the interaction between learner and instructor in a social environment (e.g., Schunk, 2001, Zimmerman, 1989). As a result, various approaches of providing learners with the skills of self-regulation have emerged.

Due to a multitude of empirical evidence, there is now a consensus on the effectiveness of self-regulated learning on academic achievement (e.g., Chung, 2000; Paris & Paris, 2001; Winne, 1995, Zimmerman, 1990; Zimmerman & Bandura, 1994; Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons, 1988), as well as on learning motivation (Pintrich, 1999). Furthermore, self-regulated learning is a key competence for lifelong learning (European Framework of Life-long Learning, EU Council, 2002). Considering these three areas where students can benefit from self-regulated learning – academic performance, motivation to learn, and learning strategies – the value of self-regulated learning training programmes becomes clear. Providing students with knowledge and skills about how to self-regulate their learning helps them to self-initiate motivational, behavioural, and metacognitive activities in order to control their learning (Zimmerman, 1998). Moreover, research on instruction of self-regulated learning has revealed the gain of implementing these training programmes directly in classrooms: first, strategy instruction should be context-related which is easier to attain when embedding it in regular instruction. Empirical studies found that training programmes are more efficient if students are learning domain-specific content and, in addition, strategies to handle this content competently so that both can be related to each other (e.g., Perels, Guertler, & Schmitz, 2005). Second, training programmes should also create learning environments that are conducive to self-regulated learning, so that students are provided with opportunities to apply and practice the newly acquired strategies (Van Hout-Wolters, Simons, & Volet, 2002). Third, in order to enhance transfer of self-regulated learning to other areas even contextualized forms of strategy instruction need to address the issue of transfer directly (Fuchs et al., 2003a, Fuchs et al., 2003b).

Considering this highly elaborated and detailed amount of research, one could expect a well-elaborated application of this research knowledge in the classroom. However, despite numerous intervention studies to teach students strategies for self-regulated learning conducted in this field, a composition of the optimal characteristics of such interventions is difficult to find. Training programmes appear to be rather heterogeneous, depending on the various underlying models of the construct of self-regulated learning.

Research on self-regulated learning often comes from different areas, focusing on various aspects of learning. This is leading to a large amount of training studies presenting a large variation in theoretical assumptions and study designs, reaching for different goals. In order to get an overview of which kind of training programme that aimed at fostering self-regulated learning amongst students worked most effectively, it would be desirable to compare systematically the differing types of intervention. Despite the great amount of research on fostering self-regulated learning in school settings, there is a lack of such a methodical comparison of recent empirical work. A meta-analysis conducted with studies published between 1982 and 1992 by Hattie, Biggs, and Purdie (1996) compared 51 interventions that aimed to enhance students’ learning by improving the use of study skills. This analysis included programmes, which focused on task-related skills, as well as on self-management skills and motivational and affective elements. The results indicated that interventions were most effective when being situated in a context, and fostering a high amount of student activity and metacognitive awareness. Nevertheless, the studies included in that review do not reflect the latest state in the field any longer. Since new models of self-regulated learning evolved during the last decades, influencing the intervention in this field (Boekaerts & Corno, 2005), a detailed view on relevant studies conducted in the last years seems to be necessary. In addition, most of the studies included in Hattie et al.'s meta-analysis were conducted with secondary school or university students. However, research of the last decade has shown the impact of these kinds of interventions for young students. This meta-analysis therefore focuses on the effectiveness of training programmes for primary school children.

Most of the research on self-regulated learning in school settings has been conducted with older students, in the upper-elementary grades through college (Perry, Phillips, & Dowler, 2004). According to the suggestions resulting from most of the research from the 1980s and 1990s, children at the elementary grades and younger should have difficulties with applying cognitive and metacognitive strategies (Paris & Newman, 1990; Zimmerman, 1990). Studies on the development of metacognitive knowledge and self-regulated learning reported a major shift between kindergarten age and grade six. However, even if self-regulated learning increases during the elementary school years and can be found effective only in the end of elementary school age, empirical evidence illustrates self-regulation of learning already in preschool children (Schneider & Lockl, 2002). It therefore makes sense to investigate the effects of training self-regulated learning during development. Research over the last 10 years has given empirical support to the presumption that young children can and do engage in activities to self-regulate their learning (e.g., Biemiller, Shany, Inglis, & Meichenbaum, 1998; Bronson, 2000, Perry et al., 2004; Perry, VandeKamp, Mercer, & Nordby, 2002; Whitebread, 1999). Hattie et al. (1996) even found that the youngest children benefit the most from training. The major advantage of training children how to self-regulate their learning in the beginning of their schooling is that during these first crucial years, students set up learning and self-efficacy attitudes (Whitebread, 2000) which are easier to change than when students have already developed disadvantageous learning styles and learning behaviour (see Hattie et al., 1996).

Considering the evolution of the conceptual models of self-regulated learning over the last decades, there is a change in focusing on different aspects of learning. Paris and Paris (2001) describe the historical trends in research on self-regulated learning from the 1970s, investigating strategy use mostly in the cognitive area, and in the 1980s, when researchers started the experimental implementation of differing strategy conditions, including more and more metacognitive aspects of learning. In the 1990s, research finally highlighted strategy intervention in the classroom (Paris & Paris, 2001). Recent models for self-regulated learning have increasingly emphasized the impact of motivational and volitional components on learning (Boekaerts & Corno, 2005). Nevertheless, even when restricting the focus on the latest models, different concepts and definitions of self-regulated learning seem to emerge. Puustinen and Pulkkinen (2001) confronted the latest five models on self-regulated learning supported with empirical studies, including those by Boeakerts, Borkowski, Pintrich, Winne and Zimmerman. Although all authors have a common perception of self-regulated learning, generally speaking, as a cycle in which self-assessment and self-evaluation of the learning process influence the following learning processes, they stress different aspects of this process and the constituent components, e.g., by giving a more motivation-oriented versus a metacognitively weighted definition (Puustinen & Pulkkinen, 2001). The appearance of various models on self-regulated learning, putting the focus on different elements of the concept, goes hand in hand with a wide range of terms which are used in this context (Zeidner, Boekaerts, & Pintrich, 2000). Especially the distinction between self-regulated learning and metacognitive learning strategies is often a fuzzy one that lacks clarification. To cope with this problem, in this article metacognitive strategies are seen as one very important element of self-regulated learning, following a model of self-regulated learning by Boekaerts (1999): self-regulated learning is characterized as an interaction of cognitive, metacognitive and motivational processes, which work together during information processing. Boekaerts’ model illustrates the relationship between these three categories of strategies: the first level consists of cognitive strategies, which refer directly to information processing. The second level relates to the use of metacognitive strategies aiming at the regulation of the learning process. The third level illustrates the maintenance of motivation, which is characterized by the willingness of independent goal setting, self-activation, as well as adaptive coping with success and failure (Boekaerts, 1999).

When we use the terms self-regulation competence or skills, we refer to the ability of students to self-regulate their learning (based on the definition of competence by Weinert, 2001), whereas the term self-regulation strategy is used to describe concrete activities aiming at reaching a learning goal in a more efficient way (based on the definition of strategy by Moely et al., 1992). However, the original terminology used by cited authors will be kept when quoting articles in the following.

Dependent on the respectively underlying model of self-regulated learning, interventions emphasize heterogeneous aspects of the learning process. According to Boekaerts and Corno (2005), earlier interventions to foster students’ self-regulation of learning were conducted by means of cognitive-behaviour modification programmes or by directly teaching the strategies. Innovations of later classroom intervention consisted of changes in traditional classroom arrangements in order to establish the responsibility and independence of the learners (Boekaerts & Corno, 2005). This is consistent with Lin (2001), who found that in recent years, metacognitive intervention has changed from a strategy training approach to creating social environments to support metacognition. She also asserts a shift from training content that focuses either on domain-specific knowledge or on knowledge about learning, to a more balanced training programme consisting of both kinds of knowledge (Lin, 2001).

Whereas in the beginning of research on metacognition almost all the investigations were confined to metamemory, today metacognition is studied in a broader context. Metacognitive and metastrategic functions are now investigated in different domains, like text comprehension, mathematics, and problem solving (Kuhn, 2000). Therefore, the implementation of strategy training programmes is integrated into various school subjects.

As pointed out earlier, there is enough empirical evidence for the positive impact of self-regulation on learning which has led to the great research interest in promoting self-regulated learning strategies: first, empirical studies have revealed that students can develop strategies based on their experiences, but the construction of strategies can also be guided in order to acquire self-regulated learning strategies (Paris & Newman, 1990). Second, there seems to be a lack of metacognitive knowledge during the first years at elementary school, since the instruction of learning strategies at school is still rare (Annevirta & Vauras, 2001; Perry et al., 2004). Therefore, these findings show that: (1) self-regulation strategies can be improved through training and (2) that there is a requirement for training these strategies.

More and more research has dealt with supporting self-regulated learning in younger students. Despite all these studies, there is still a need for research in this field to clarify the efficacy of various kinds of intervention (Schunk, 2005). Therefore, it seems to be both interesting and useful to get an overview of these kinds of interventions and their characteristics.

This meta-analysis should therefore investigate the following research questions:

  • (1)

    Are interventions to foster self-regulated learning at the elementary school level effective generally?

  • (2)

    What types of interventions are most effective?

Section snippets

Literature search

To get the sample of the study, a literature search had been carried out in the following computerized databases: PsycInfo and ERIC, as the most common Anglophone databases in the field of educational psychology, as well as Psyndex, the German database for psychological literature. As self-regulated learning remains a fuzzy concept with inconsistent terminology, a search exclusively done with the term self-regulated learning would not access all studies conducted within this scope. Thus, in

Results

Most of the analyzed studies did not only report gains in academic performance but also the change of motivational variables or strategic behaviour. These heterogeneous outcome measures should not be thrown together. To be able to investigate the training effects in these different categories one by one, outcome measures were grouped according to the recorded construct. All analyses were conducted once for all outcome measures together, as well as separately for each category. We therefore

First research question: summary of main effects

This meta-analysis examined the effectiveness of self-regulated learning interventions on primary school students’ academic performance, strategy use, and motivation. Moreover, it investigated the effect of the different training characteristics on the effectiveness of the intervention. With regard to our first research question, the results of this meta-analysis have shown that self-regulated learning training programmes have a positive effect on learning outcomes, strategy use, and

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Reyn van Ewijk and Wolfgang Viechtbauer for their valuable methodological suggestions. Furthermore, we are grateful to the research assistants Adriana Oppitz and Valentina Tesky for collecting and coding the studies with the first author. Finally, we want to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

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