THE EFFECT OF A SELF-REGULATORY STRATEGY USE INTERVENTION ON COLLEGE STUDENTS’ SELF-REGULATED LEARNING AND CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING

Abstract

An increasing number of people are going online to learn in their everyday lives. Learning and integrating new information from online sources can be difficult because it takes time and taxes human memory (Greene et al., 2018b). People must self-regulate while learning online to accurately and aptly learn new information (Azevedo, 2005). Self-regulation is the process of monitoring and controlling aspects of the internal environment (e.g., motivation) and external environment (e.g., physical environment) in the service of a goal (Oettingen & Gollwitzer, 2015). When self-regulation is applied to learning contexts, it is called self-regulated learning (SRL; Schunk & Greene, 2018). When people encounter difficulty, both during self-regulation and self-regulated learning, they must enact self-control, which can deplete personal resources (Baumeister & Vohs, 2016). Interventions have been designed to enhance self-regulation by addressing this depletion of resources, which in turn can help students reach their learning goals (Hoch et al., 2017, 2020a). I tested a self-regulation intervention, multiple contrasting with implementation intentions (Oettingen & Gollwitzer, 2015), which was designed to automatize strategies for dealing with obstacles while learning. I posited that this would reduce the depletion that can occur when students simultaneously regulate aspects of themselves and their learning, thus allowing participants to allocate those resources to engage in deep learning strategies, instead. I found that the intervention did increase scores on a conceptual learning outcome measure, while controlling for prior knowledge. However, the relationship between the intervention and the conceptual learning outcome measure was not mediated by deep learning strategies. These findings imply that multiple contrasting with implementation intentions interventions have promise as a way to help people more effectively allocate their mental resources when learning online, leading to more and better understanding.Doctor of Educatio