Outline of key ideas from "Self-regulated Learning at the

Junction of Cognition and Motivation."

· Self-regulated learning has emerged as a powerful new learning theory that is able to promote the transfer of knowledge and skills to real-life situations and make students more independent of their teachers in extending and updating their knowledge base.

· The purpose of the paper was to examine the underpinnings of two strongly related aspects of self-regulated learning that have, until recently, been studied in a relatively isolated fashion. The conceptual framework that is presented in the paper highlights the parallel and reciprocal relationships between components of the cognitive and motivational repertoire and centers on three levels of these repertoires: domain-specific knowledge, strategy use, and goals.

· Studying Learning in Context

-Wittrock(1992) argued that, traditionally, research in educational psychology has been conducted from two perspectives. Research set up from the first perspective is practice oriented, whereas research designed from the second perspective applies principles from general psychology in an attempt to understand the phenomena of learning and instruction. But, as Resnick(1987) explained, most educational psychologists no longer see their field as an application of mainstream psychology. They set up fundamental research on the processes of learning and instruction and conduct this research in actual classrooms, rather than in the psychological laboratory.

- Students' perceptions, cognitions, and actions are highly situated. This implies that students' conceptual structures and their cognitive strategies are influenced by the environment in which they have been acquired…At the same time, it means that the social and cultural environment in which learning processes take place is reciprocally affected by students' actions.

- By adopting the "situated learning" or contextual approach educational psychologists changed their focus away from studying students' learning abilities and learning outcome to (1) students' capacity to regulate their own learning, and (2) to teachers' skills to create appropriate learning environments. This shift in research focus reflects the belief that learning is essentially a goal-directed process, and that how this process is described and explained will be closely tied to our understanding of what learning in different contexts entails.

- Many researchers currently defend the view that a major goal of formal education should be to equip students with self-regulatory skills. These skills are viewed as vital, not only to guide one's own learning during formal schooling, but also to educate oneself and up-date one's knowledge after leaving school. To this end, students should be motivated to actively participate in the teaching-learning process, constructing their own knowledge, and, in doing so, becoming gradually independent of their teachers. In parallel, teachers should create powerful learning environments in which students can learn to steer and direct their learning, control their effort expenditure, and manage their emotions. Together these aspects of learning have been referred to by the term "self-regulated learning.

- Constructive learning has been defined as a natural by-product of experiences encountered within contexts in which the-knowledge-to-be-learned is embedded in a natural way.

-The learning process of self-regulated learners is inherently constructive and goal-directed.

-Self-regulated learners rely on different types of prior knowledge, including: Domain-specific knowledge and skills, Cognitive strategies that can be applied to these domains, Metacognitive knowledge and skills, and Metamotivational knowledge and skills.

· Self-regulated Learning

-As a construct, self-regulated learning is difficult to define. Most researchers will agree that an essential aspect of SRL is its goal directedness. Other personal attributes that emphasize SRL have been identified, including a sense of self-efficacy, willingness to practice, commitment, time management, metacognitive awareness, and efficient strategy use. In contrast, personal attributes that have been associated with poor SRL and underachievement are impulsiveness, low academic goals, low self-efficacy, low control, and avoidance behavior.

-It was documented that students' domain-specific knowledge, their use of cognitive strategies, and self-regulation jointly influence academic learning to a considerable extent.

-Many researchers and practitioners agree that self-regulated learners are students who are metacognitively and metamotivationally aware of what they are doing and what needs to be done to successfully attain self-defined or set goals. SRL is defined as "the process whereby students activate and sustain cognitions, behaviors, and affects, which are systematically oriented toward attainment of their goals"….students who can regulate their own learning are those who have the capacity (1) to exert control over different dimensions of the learning process, including the selection, combination, and coordination of cognitive strategies in a context-sensitive way, and (2) to allocate resources to the different aspects of the learning process, without too much distortion of well-being.

· Two Different Conceptual Frameworks

-Research on two basic mechanisms of SRL, namely cognitive self-regulation and motivational self-regulation, has developed in a relatively isolated fashion. In my six component model of SRL, I conceptualized two parallel, but strongly interrelated regulatory systems, namely the cognitive information processing system and the motivational-emotional system.

-Cognitive and motivation strategies are intertwined aspects of self-regulation.

-One side of the coin refers to cognitive self-regulation, the other side to motivational self-regulation.

· Metacognitive Self-regulation: One Side of the Coin

-The concept of metacognition (cognizing about cognition) can be dated back to Flavell's (1979) influential paper.

· Component 1: Domain-Specific Knowledge and Skills

-Students learn better from direct experiences in concrete and authentic learning situations.

-Domain-specific knowledge has a stronger association with information-processing components in a specific subject-matter domain than general cognitive ability, and can even compensate for low overall aptitude…domain specific knowledge entails conceptual and procedural knowledge.

· Component 2: Cognitive Strategies

-The term "cognitive strategy" is used to refer to cognitive processes and behavior that students use during actual learning experiences to complete an assignment or to accomplish a goal implied by the academic task. Some of these strategies are performed automatically, whereas others are under the control of the learner.

· Component 3: Cognitive Self-regulatory Strategies

-As students get older, the cognitive strategies in their repertoire increase in number, and become more tailored to everyday demands. This implies that they have access to many proceduralized skills, but also that they can take steps to adapt their cognitive strategies in situations where they detect a misfit between cognitive strategies activated from their cognitive repertoire and situational demands.

-"cognitive self-regulatory strategies" refers to cognitive processes and behavior that are especially geared toward accomplishing self-set (or adopted) goals, and toward regulating one's activities in order to accomplish these goals. Such regulatory strategies embrace three highly complex skills. The first skill refers to the student's capability to form a clear mental representation of the learning goal and to re-define it when necessary. The second denotes the capacity to device a plan of action and to extend or revise it, when appropriate. The third skill involves the ability to monitor one's behavior, to detect mismatches, and to determine progress toward the (learning) goal.

· Metamotivational Self-regulation: The Other Side of the Coin

-the construct of SRL is reciprocally related to motivation…."the process whereby students activate and sustain cognitions, behaviors, and affects, which are systematically oriented toward attainment of their goals," and the latter as "the process whereby goal-directed activities are instigated and sustained"

-motivational self-regulation has to do with other aspects of behavior, such as inclination, sensitivity, choice, level and time of involvement, and effort expenditure.

· Component 4: Motivational Beliefs and Theory of Mind

-It has become evident that learning builds upon theories of mind and theories of self. Such theories pervade the process through the interaction of person variables with specific learning situations and subject-matter domains.

-As can be seen, this subset includes (1) beliefs, attitudes, and values related to curricular tasks and subject-matter areas, (2) strategy beliefs related to a domain, (3) beliefs, judgments, and values related to one's capacity in relation to a domain of study, and (4) goal orientations.

· Component 5: Motivation Strategies

-Research has indicated that students who are interested in the contents, are intrinsically motivated, or feel comfortable in a learning situation are prepared to expend more effort than students who feel uncomfortable, or are anxious, sad, or extrinsically motivated.

-Like cognitive strategies, motivation strategies are used by students during actual learning experiences.

-In parallel to cognitive strategies, motivation strategies may also be automatic or under the control of the learner.

-Existing data reveal that motivation strategies can be either domain-specific or domain-transcending.

· Component 6: Motivational Self-regulatory Strategies

-As students grow older, it is assumed that the motivation strategies in their repertoire become more differentiated. They will have encountered misfits between their motivation strategies and situational demands, and have come across situations where there was minimal or maximal external control.

-"motivational self-regulatory strategies" They embrace at least four highly complex skills. The first skill refers to the student's capability to form a clear mental representation of his or her behavioral intention.

-The second skill refers to the capacity to link a behavioral intention to a plan of action involving the chosen cognitive and motivation strategies.

-The third skill involves the ability to monitor one's behavioral intention, protecting and enacting it once it has taken shape, and allocating resources (time and effort) to the different aspects of the learning process, without too much distortion of well-being.