Theories of Self-Regulated Learning and Academic Achievement: An Overview and Analysis

TLDR

Self‑regulated learning emerged in the mid‑1980s as a framework that views learning as a proactive, self‑directed process, emphasizing personal initiative, perseverance, and adaptive skill across both individual and socially mediated contexts. This chapter reviews self‑regulation theories, identifies their shared features, and compares seven prominent theoretical perspectives. Subsequent chapters provide detailed discussions of each perspective, illustrating how researchers apply them to guide research and instruction.

Abstract

Theory and research on self-regulated academic learning emerged in the mid1980s to address the question of how students become masters of their own learning processes. Neither a mental ability nor an academic performance skill, self-regulation refers instead to the self-directive process through which learners transform their mental abilities into task-related academic skills. This approach views learning as an activity that students do for themselves in a proactive way, rather than as a covert event that happens to them reactively as a result of teaching experiences. Self-regulated learning (SRL) theory and research are not limited to asocial forms of education, such as discovery learning, self-education through reading, studying, programmed instruction, or computer-assisted instruction, but can include social forms of learning such as modeling, guidance, and feedback from peers, coaches, and teachers. The key issue defining learning as self-regulated is not whether it is socially isolated, but rather whether the learner displays personal initiative, perseverance, and adaptive skill in pursuing it. In this initial chapter, I discuss self-regulation theories as a distinctive approach to academic learning and instruction historically and then identify their common features. Finally, I briefly introduce and compare seven prominent theoretical perspectives on self-regulated learning-operant, phenomenological, information processing, social cognitive, volitional, Vygotskian, and cognitive constructivist approaches-in terms of those common features. In the chapters that follow, each theoretical perspective is discussed at length by prominent researchers who have used it to guide their research and instruction.