Perceived control, autonomy, and self-regulated learning strategies among Japanese high school students.

Abstract

This study investigated relations among measures of perceived control, autonomy, and self-regulated learning strategies for 228 junior high school (90 in Grade 7 and 138 in Grade 8) and 306 senior high school (184 in Grade 11 and 122 in Grade 12) students. Participants completed three self-report questionnaires designed to measure control beliefs, strategy beliefs, capacity beliefs, seven types of motivation, and two types of self-regulated strategies. Confirmatory factor analysis identified the structure of perceived control modeled by Skinner, Chapman, and Baltes (1988), the seven-factor structure of autonomy by Vallerand, Pelletier, Blais, Briere, Senecal, and Vallieres (1992, 1993), and the two types of self-regulated learning strategies by Pintrich and De Groot (1990). Significant "grade" differences were obtained in several measures. Canonical correlation was used to investigate the relations between perceived control and autonomy measures. Finally, multiple regression analysis was used to investigate the relations between perceived control and self-regulated learning strategies and between autonomy and self-regulated learning strategies. Implications of the results are presented.