Promoting self-regulated learning in technology enhanced learning environments : keeping a digital track of the learning process

Tese de doutoramento (co-tutela), Psicologia (Psicologia da Educação), Faculdade de Psicologia da Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade de Coimbra, Technial University of Darmstadt, 2014

Learning autonomously and in a meaningful way is a challenge faced by students and teachers daily in all different types of learning environments. In an attempt to aid students during their learning process, teachers and researchers have made strong efforts to study and implement contemporary methodologies and pedagogical resources that will fit the differential needs of students. Thus, it has become increasingly imperative that academicians and practitioners work towards revising and updating ways of learning and teaching as regulation processes within new learning spaces where Self-regulated Learning (SRL) competencies may be developed. This investigation specifically, focused on understanding and providing insights on how learning could be meaningful and rewarding for students through the regulation of learning in contemporary learning environments. Thus, this investigation aimed to understand how students can learn and regulate their learning individually and collaboratively in a computer-supported learning environment. It also aimed to understand how diary tasks and digital traces could capture the learning processes and perceptions associated to the regulation of learning. The processes involved in the regulation of learning have been widely studied in the field of educational psychology with regards to the impact they have in terms of reflectiveness, motivational/affective aspects and performance outcomes. Nonetheless, the difficulty in measuring these processes in specific contexts has challenged researchers to develop instruments and methods that achieve this purpose. In an attempt to contribute to the already known methods and tools, we also intend to present measures and methods that were used in this investigation to capture the complexity of the regulation of learning. In order to do so, we designed three studies that would allow us to understand the regulation of learning from the students and teachers' perspectives, as well as with objective measures. In a first phase, we proposed to study students' perspectives of themselves as students by studying what they understand about how they think and function in the classroom. Considering some of the literature has indicated that students aged nine to eleven often experience difficulties in reporting their metacognitive functioning, we decided to examine whether students this age overrated their functioning as students under learning situations. Hence, we firstly present a preliminary approach of how metacognitive awareness (MA) could be measured in students of this age group. Thus, the first study aimed to understand how students (n =1029) reported their metacognitive functioning. In a first analysis, Exploratory Factor Analyses revealed a unidimensional structure of the Children's Awareness Tool of Metacognition for Metacognitive Awareness (MA), enclosing metacognitive knowledge (MK) and metacognitive skills (MS) in a single dimension. Then, an analysis with the Item Response Theory approach was conducted to better understand the unidimensionality of the dimension proposed through the interactions between participants and items. With good item reliability (.87), good person reliability (.87) and good Cronbach's α for MA (.95), these results showed the potential of the instrument, as well as a tendency of students aged nine to eleven to overrate their metacognitive functioning. Therefore, we concluded that these students' reflections about how they function in the classroom were not accurate, as has been suggested in the literature with students in similar age groups from different populations (i.e. Lipko-Speed, 2013). In line with these conclusions, we proceeded to develop a second study that would focus on helping students become more reflective about how they learn. In a second phase, we proposed to investigate how changes could occur towards deep reflection and how students could learn about how they learn with training in how to regulate one´s learning. Accordingly, we examined whether students improved how they learned while they reflected and learned about how they learned. Nonetheless, and as we have previously mentioned, the processes and perceptions of students' SRL are not easily measured. Hence, we intended to study ways in which these processes and perceptions of SRL could be investigated and assessed. Specifically, the second study aimed to assess whether training in how to regulate one's learning is related to students' growth patterns regarding their reported self-regulated learning activity. This study also investigates whether this type of training has an impact on students' reflective ability. To reach these goals we examine whether students' use of a diary task - developed by interviewing primary school students (n = 43) and validated with exploratory (n = 78) and confirmatory (n = 83) factor analyses - captures change in students' reported self-regulated learning activity and reflective ability during training in how to regulate one's learning (students: n = 100; diary task entries: n = 1000). Results from Multilevel Linear Modeling revealed a different growth over time of reported self-regulated learning activity between students who experienced training in how to regulate one's learning and students who did not. Moreover, pre and posttest results revealed that the students who experienced the training reported their reflections more autonomously and specifically in their diary task and had better academic performance than students who did not. These results demonstrate how the diary task captured change in students' perceptions, validating it as a monitoring tool. These findings were in accordance with what the literature suggests about learners that regulate their learning. That is, students who are cognitively, metacognitively and motivationally active participants in their learning process, tend to regulate their learning and perform better in tasks (e.g. Wolters, Pintrich & Karabenick, 2003; Zimmerman & Martinez Pons, 1986). Thus, the students that participated in this second study revealed that they were motivated during this learning experience and that they were given opportunities to engage in learning with some degree of freedom. In a third phase, we studied how contemporary learning environments could support changes in reflections about learning in a meaningful way for students and how the latter learn in and from their social environment. Concurrently, we examined whether students improved how they learned while they reflected and learned about how they learned in these contemporary learning environments. Hence, in the third study presented, we specifically aimed to understand whether training in how to regulate one's learning had an impact on students' reported self-regulated learning activity and reflections in a computer-supported collaborative learning environment (CSCL). We also examined if this impact was somehow different from other learning environments, such as training in regulated learning without technology and lessons without training in regulated learning. Furthermore, in this study we investigated whether there were differences in academic performance between students in the different learning environments. In order to do so, a quasi-experimental design with repeated measures was used with one experimental group and two control-groups with process diary data and pre and posttests. A total of 44 elementary school students (diary task entries = 440) studying English as a foreign language participated in this study. Through Multilevel Linear Analysis of the diary data the results showed that there was a difference in growth over time of reported self-regulated learning activity between the students who experienced the training in a CSCL environment and the students who did not. What's more, pre and posttest results demonstrated that the students experiencing training in how to regulate one's learning reported their reflections more specifically and autonomously. Ultimately, the students that had the training, had a greater improvement in oral performance and independently of the technology, gained more vocabulary. Overall, our results provide important information and examples as to how guiding students in the regulation of learning can have positive implications in terms of motivational and metacognitive aspects, as well as academic performance in contemporary learning environments. Hence, providing students with instruments and meaningful environments, where they can engage individually and collaboratively in tasks with the use of technology, can help them become more reflective and strategic in managing their learning process.

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)