SELF-REGULATION

BY BARRY J. ZIMMERMAN

WHAT IS SELF-REGULATION?

• Self regulated learning is a self-oriented feedback loop. This loop entails a cycling process in which students monitor the effectiveness of their learning methods or strategies and react to this feedback in a variety of ways, ranging from covert changes in self-perception to overt changes in behavior such as altering the use of a learning strategy.

SUBPROCESSES IN SELF-REGULATION.

• Social cognitive theorists assume that self-regulation involves three classes of subprocesses: selfobservation, self-judgment, and self-reaction (Bandura, 1986).

• These performance-related subprocesses are assumed to interact with each other in reciprocal fashion. For example, listening to an audiotape of one's speech (self-observation) is assumed to affect self-judgments of progress in acquiring rhetorical skill. These self-judgments, in turn, are expected to determine one's subsequent willingness to continue this self-instructive practice (a self-reaction).

SELF-REGULATED LEARNING PROCESS

Zimmerman suggested that self-regulated learning process better with 3 stages: • Forethought, learners preparing work before performance on their studying;

• Volitional control, which is also called "performance control", occurs in the learning process. It involves learners attention and willpower;

• Self-reflection happens in the final stage when learners review their performance toward final goals. At the same time, focusing on their learning strategies during the process is also efficient for their final outcomes

DETERMINANTS OF SELF-REGULATED LEARNING

• This approach to learning also depends on a variety of personal influences that can change with teaching or development, such as one's level of knowledge and metacognitive skill.

Personal influences: Student's self-efficacy perceptions depend in part on each of four other types of personal influence; students' knowledge, metacognitive processes, goals, and affect.

• Behavioral influences: Observing oneself can provide information about how well one is progressing toward one's goals. Self-observation is influenced by such personal processes as self-efficacy, goal-setting, and metacognitive planning, as well as by behavioral influences. Two common behavioral methods of self-observation are (a) verbal or written reporting and (b) quantitative recording of one's actions and reactions.

• Environmental influences: It is assumed that students can be taught or prompted to become more self-regulated learners by acquiring effective strategies and by enhancing perceptions of self-efficacy. Students' use of selfregulated learning strategies enables them to increase their personal control over their own behavior and immediate environment.

HOW DOES A LEARNER ACQUIRE THE CAPACITY TO SELF-REGULATE WHEN LEARNING?

Learning to self-regulate follows the same laws as the rest of learning processes.There is a specific focus on two laws. Firstly, if an action has a positive outcome, students will repeat it. Secondly, persons around the student decide how to self-regulate. The phenomenological theory states that when students understand their self-perception better, their self-regulation improves.