Investigating Teacher—Student Interactions That Foster Self-Regulated Learning

Abstract

This chapter describes the use of qualitative methods to study young children’s engagement in self-regulated learning (SRL). In particular, it describes how fine-grained analyses of running records have enabled one to characterize what teachers say and do to foster young children’s metacognitive, intrinsically motivated, and strategic behavior during reading and writing activities in their classrooms. The chapter argues that in-class observations followed by semistructured, retrospective interviews ameliorate many of the difficulties researchers have experienced in past studies of young children’s motivation and self-regulation. In the past quarter century there has been a proliferation of research on SRL, a descriptor for independent, academically effective forms of learning that involve metacognition, intrinsic motivation, and strategic action. Between group meetings, the researchers visited classrooms and observed the teachers’ implementations of innovations they had designed to help their students become more mindful and independent about their reading and writing.