Promoting self-regulated learning in an on-line environment

Self-Regulation has long been seen as a desirable but difficult to achieve instructional aim. This is particularly true of on-line learning, where users have limited instructional support and where attrition rates tend to be greater than in face-to-face teaching. This paper examines the nature of self-regulation, identifying affective and cognitive skills which make for self-regulated learners. The broad psychological states of metacognition and self-concept are identified as well as the motivational and cognitive processes that underpin them. The volitional, learning, and regulatory strategies which learners use are delineated. These are placed within the context of online learning. Aspects which characterise learning environments which support self-regulation are identified, and suggestions are made as to how self-regulation can best be enhanced within on-line courses. A Need for Self Regulation Universities are moving more and more towards flexible modes of delivering courses; a trend which is impacting on the nature of both teaching and learning. Educators are coming to terms with the challenges of developing courses to be taught remotely and asynchronously, while students, too, are battling with these new modes of delivery. While high school has traditionally been a face-to-face experience, post secondary and tertiary education is limited in its contact time and is being increasingly channelled through Multimedia and Internet resources. This lack of close social interaction significantly diminishes the regulatory mechanisms that ensure students’ smooth progression through their course. This is not necessarily a bad thing. In the end, students must be responsible for their own learning. After all, “learning is not something that happens to students; it is something that happens by students,” (Zimmerman 1989, p 21). However, it is unreasonable to assume that students will be coming into a course with the skills to regulate their own learning. (Boekaerts 1997) describes formal schooling as ‘outcome based practice sessions’ with teachers as experts and students as novices. In more flexible approaches, as in on-line tertiary education, this paradigm is no longer appropriate. Students need to become protagonists in their learning process, using the Internet as a resource for their own learning goals. It is hardly surprising that there is a high drop-out rate for students with poor study skills when they venture on-line (Loomis 2000). Brooks (1997, p. 135) goes so far as to claim that students “who are poor at self regulation easily can be slaughtered in www-based courses”. This does not however acknowledge some of the main benefits of on-line learning – that it is an efficient and flexible environment for users to meet their own learning goals. Attempting to