Year: 2004
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Task definition theoretically is one of the main components of self-regulated learning because one's representation of the task directs cognitive activities such as setting goals, creating plans, and enacting those plans to create task products.To date, little research has examined students' representations of tasks or how those representations change over time.In this dissertation I characterize students' initial representations of tasks and explore factors influencing how they refine these representations over time.Fifty-eight undergraduate students taking an undergraduate instructional psychology course participated in a semester-long examination of how students constructed and refined their task understanding.The data source was a studying portfolio consisting of detailed descriptions about and reflections on strategic processes they used to complete two main writing assignments in the course: a think paper and a design project.Analyses of these data suggest students' representations of tasks varied across two dimensions: breadth and depth.In terms of breadth, students selected information from the design project description of different grain sizes.Students with greater depth not only searched and selected information from the task, but they actively assembled elements of the task and monitored how those components fit with one another.Most students set goals and created plans; however, not all goals or plans were framed in light of criteria that would theoretically foster self-regulated learning.To revise task understanding, students metacognitively monitored their processes and outcomes of learning activities, which updated information about task, cognitive, and motivational conditions.This additional information afforded students opportunity to reassess the discrepancy between the initial state and the goal state to determine next steps to reach task goals.Although students may have recognized the need to change their approaches, they often failed to engage in effective metacognitive control to adapt approaches to learning.I interpret this to indicate that control processes require not only the skill for enacting these processes but also the motivational catalyst to sustain these efforts when competing factors are present.Future research should strive to create new measures for task understanding, and to track how students' perceptions and representations of tasks influence self-regulated learning and achievement. Chapter 2: Literature ReviewThis literature review examines principles of student learning and factors that may influence how students interpret task demands.Within this framework, I examine the role of self-regulated learning (SRL), what we currently know about task design and how students perceive these designs, how task perceptions may influence goal setting, and how constructing and then executing the plan helps students achieve task goals.I examine how being an active participant in the learning environment and how metacognitively monitoring progress are essential ingredients to effective learning.This chapter also examines how teachers' instructional actions influence students' perceptions of tasks.I conclude by examining recommendations for instructional design features to promote greater task awareness and SRL.The principles described provide a framework for understanding how theory can inform teaching practice and how the activities designed for the Instructional Psychology course, which provided the source of data for the current research, were structured to promote engagement in the classroom.The principles and assumptions in which this course was grounded act as a framework for understanding what occurred in the course. Student Learning Principles Effective Learners are Self-regulatingAn important factor that may influence how students perceive, interpret, and enact task activities is the degree to which they are self-regulated.Models of self-regulated
Source: Summit (Simon Fraser University)
Author: Diane Lee Jamieson-Noel
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W862672051