Finding Balance through Connected Learning Designs: Disentangling Self-Regulated and Co-Regulated Learning in Online Postgraduate Education

Abstract

The paradigm of lifelong learning has changed our understanding of the possibilities of online postgraduate education for fostering self-regulated learning. Recent research attention has been placed on the role of self-regulated learning in higher education in hybrid, blended or fully online environments. Although the fields of EdTech and online higher education have a significant research agenda in both scale and scope, rigorous research and substantive findings about how students experience the balance across a continuum from self-regulated learning to guided instruction have been limited. The purpose of the current study is to examine and expose learning strategies and practices that support and shape connected forms of lifelong learning in online postgraduate education across contexts. Results are presented from the qualitative component of a broader mixed methods study aiming to explore the phenomenon of interest from the participants’ perspective. The findings present three key areas of interest to further the conversation on how to best support lifelong learning in online HE and promote changes in our understanding of self-regulated learning. The article concludes with a discussion of the identified learning strategies and practices used to support learning across contexts to provide more nuanced insights into the factors that support or hinder efforts to foster lifelong, self-regulated and co-regulated learning.