Classroom Applications of Research on Self-Regulated Learning

TLDR

Over the past three decades, educational research has increasingly focused on cognitive strategies, metacognition, motivation, task engagement, and social supports, leading to the emergence of self‑regulated learning as a holistic construct that researchers use to design interventions benefiting teachers and students. This article explains how the growing popularity of self‑regulated learning research has been translated into concrete classroom practices. The authors illustrate classroom applications of self‑regulated learning across reading and writing strategies, cognitive task engagement, and self‑assessment, discussing the pedagogical principles and research underpinning each area.

Abstract

This article describes how self-regulated learning (SRL) has become a popular topic in research in educational psychology and how the research has been translated into classroom practices. Research during the past 30 years on students' learning and achievement has progressively included emphases on cognitive strategies, metacognition, motivation, task engagement, and social supports in classrooms. SRL emerged as a construct that encompassed these various aspects of academic learning and provided more holistic views of the skills, knowledge, and motivation that students acquire. The complexity of SRL has been appealing to educational researchers who seek to provide effective interventions in schools that benefit teachers and students directly. Examples of SRL in classrooms are provided for three areas of research: strategies for reading and writing, cognitive engagement in tasks, and self-assessment. The pedagogical principles and underlying research are discussed for each area. Whether SRL is viewed as a set of skills that can be taught explicitly or as developmental processes of self-regulation that emerge from experience, teachers can provide information and opportunities to students of all ages that will help them become strategic, motivated, and independent learners.