Self-Regulated Learning Strategies among Students of Arabic Language Course and Intensive Arabic Course in Mara University of Technology Malaysia (Uitm)

Abstract

Introduction In recent years, there have been various courses of the Arabic language offered to the public in Malaysia. The different types of courses are meant for different purposes and different target of students. Previous studies (see Olaussen & Braten, 1999; Ray, Garavalia, & Murdock, 2003) had shown that one of the main indicators of success in learning was the usage of self-regulated learning strategies. Therefore, this study intended to investigate the level of the usage of self-regulated learning strategies as well as the differences between students in two types of Arabic Language courses which were the Arabic Language as a Third Language course (AL3) and Intensive Arabic course (IAC). Self Regulated Learning Self-regulated learning strategies seem to be one of the main factors to ensure the success of a learning process. It refers to the self-directive process and self-beliefs that enable learners to transform their mental abilities into academic performance (Zimmerman, 2008). Students who have high use of self-regulated learning strategies develop their own initiatives while learning, are able to adapt their methods and strategies towards learning in correspondence to their own objectives of learning (Olaussen & Braten, 1999). It is an active and constructive process to control cognitive and metacognitive strategies, motivation, behaviours, and related to resource management and environment of study (Hsu, 1997; Malpass, O'Neil, & Hocevar, 1999; Pintrich & De Groot, 1990) in accordance to academic purposes in their own context of living (al-Alwan, 2008). Self-regulated learning has a close relationship with Bandura's Social-cognitive learning theory, Piaget's theory of regulation and Effort theory of Vygotsky (Hsu, 1997). Those theories led to the development of self-regulated learning which states that learning is governed by a variety of interacting cognitive, metacognitive, motivational and environmental components (al-Alwan, 2008). Previous research has shown that students with high use of self-regulated learning strategies perform better in their academic life. It has also been proven that curricula that are designed according to self-regulated learning strategies tend to produce high achievers (see Olaussen & Braten, 1999; Ray, et al., 2003). Bail, Zhang and Tachiyama (2008) concluded from their study that pre-degree students who were given courses in self-regulated learning during their pre-degree preparation course had shown a significant high achievement in their studies for a longer period of time as compared to students who did not participate in the course. Olaussen and Braten (1999) on the other hand, have placed an important role of a cross-cultural perspective which included learning context and self beliefs in education. It also plays an important role in the success of self-regulated learning. One of the instruments of self-regulated learning is The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) developed by Pintrich et al. (1991). It is a self-report instrument and has been used in many studies (Duncan & McKeachie, 2005). Based on MSLQ, self-regulated learning strategies are divided into four main components including motivation, cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies and resource management. The first component of MSLQ is motivation. It focuses on the reasons why students enroll and engage in the learning process. This component consists of three sub components namely value, expectancy and affect components. Value component is assosiated with intrinsic goal orientation which focuses on learning and mastery (Hsu, 1997; Lynch, 2006; Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991), extrinsic goal orientation which focuses on grades achievement and recognition from others (Hsu, 1997; Lynch, 2006; Pintrich, et al., 1991) and task value which focuses on students' judgements of how useful and important the content of the course is to them (Hsu, 1997; Lynch, 2006; Pintrich, et al. …