Self‐monitoring and its relationship with educational level and task importance

Abstract

To investigate students' self‐monitoring practice and effects of educational level and task importance on self‐monitoring, 510 students, varying in educational level from elementary through graduate school, reported the self‐monitoring strategies they employed in three learning situations with different levels of task importance. The study identified six self‐monitoring strategies used by students but found a low involvement in self‐monitoring at all educational levels. It was found that older students used more complex self‐monitoring strategies more frequently than younger students. The study also showed that students' self‐monitoring increased with task importance. The self‐monitoring deficiencies that students experienced in difficult learning tasks were attributed to the lack of a system of self‐monitoring. Educational applications of teaching self‐monitoring strategies and developing self‐monitoring systems for difficult learning tasks were discussed.