Chapter 22 - Self-Regulation Interventions with a Focus on Learning Strategies

Abstract

This chapter addresses self-regulation in relation to the acquisition, use, and control of students' learning strategies. Learning strategies include any thoughts, behaviors, beliefs, or emotions that facilitate the acquisition, understanding, or later transfer of new knowledge and skills. A model is described as strategic learning that demonstrates the relationships among students' learning strategy knowledge, learning strategy skills, and self-regulation, as well as other variables that significantly impact learning and achievement. The chapter leads to an evolving focus on information processing research and models that emphasize that cognition is something that could be controlled through cognitive and metacognitive processes. One of the practical applications of these new information processing theories is in the area of memory strategies that could be used in educational settings. Research on mnemonics and advances in the understanding of associative networks pave the way for researchers to investigate different types of training that could be used to improve students' paired-associate learning. The model of what it means to be a learner is shifting from viewing the learner as a passive receptacle for knowledge to the leaner as an active, self-determined individual who processes information in complex ways.