IS IT WORTH TO REFLECT WHEN LEARNING ON –LINE? SELF-REGULATION IN E-ENGLISH

ABSTRACT

In a time where on-line courses have exponentially increased, it is important to  think about strategies that help students to succeed in e-Learning. Several authors (Bandura, 1986; Bouffard-Bouchard, Parent, & Larivee, 1991; Silva, 2004; Zimmerman, 2000) have claimed that the development of self-regulating learning is fundamental so that the individuals know how to monitor the affective and cognitive processes involved in the acquisition, organization and use of information, and to develop motivation and self–efficacy (or the belief in their capabilities) as well. The stimulation of self-regulation mechanisms in e-Learning students may help them to learn better, to get better grades and to increase their satisfaction levels, which will motivate them for further learning. This skill also allows the individuals to enroll in lifelong learning, which is very important to face the demands of today’s world of work.

Through the design of a learning unit, integrated in the curricula of English as a foreign  language, we tried to measure the impact of a methodology centered in self-regulation strategies in students’ scholar results. We also tried to measure the impact of such methodology in students´ further use of self-regulation strategies, their perception of self-efficacy for self-regulated learning and their perception of instrumentality of selfregulated learning. Berbaum’s suggestions in PADèCA (1992) were the framework of this project, which intention was to help students to learn about their own way of learning and to use work methodologies adjusted to the learning contents. In this sense, we selected activities that involved diverse cognitive styles (Gardner & Hatch, 1989) and we applied Caladine’s model to on-line learning. According to the mentioned model, there are five components that should equally intervene in the learning process: (1) providing materials to students (supporting documents as powerpoints or videos); (2) interaction with the materials (slightly guided by formative evaluation); (3) interaction with the teacher (feedback); (4) interaction between learners (pair work and class discussion in the forums) and (5) intra-action (through reflective practice).

This quasi-experimental study included 41 participants who attended the 7th grade at a public school in Almada (Setúbal district, Portugal). To evaluate the scholar results of the students we used a diagnostic test and a final evaluation test. To measure the impact of the learning unit in students’ self-regulation skill we used three questionnaires, applied before and after the students attend the learning unit: (1) Selfregulated learning processes questionnaire; (2) Self-efficacy for self-regulate questionnaire and (3) Instrumentality for self-regulate learning processes questionnaire. The results confirmed the correlation between self-regulation and the improvement of scholar results but they did not support the possibility of increasing the self-regulation skill through the instructional design.

Since the results of the final evaluation tests reveal that students improved their scholar performance, we explained the decrease in self-regulation processes through the phenomenon of social desirability and the necessity, according to Heslin (1999), of adjusting the learners’ self-efficacy to more realistic levels. Additionally, we analyzed the threats to the internal validity of this study in order to have a clear understanding of the factors that determine the development of the self-regulation skill and to provide more data about the relation between learning and self-regulation.

KEYWORDS: Learning, self-regulation, e-learning, English.