Tools to Support Self-Regulated Learning in Online Environments: Literature Review

Abstract

Self-regulated learning (SRL) skills are especially important in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), where teacher guidance is scarce, and learners must engage in their learning process trying to succeed and achieve their learning goals. However, developing SRL strategies is difficult for learners given the autonomy that is required in this kind of courses. In order to support learners on this process, researchers have proposed a variety of tools designed to support certain aspects of self-regulation in online learning environments. Nevertheless, there is a lack of study to understand what the commonalities and differences in terms of design are, what the results in terms of the effect on learners’ self-regulation are and which of them could be applied in MOOCs. Those are the questions that should be further explored. In this paper we present a systematic literature review where 22 tools designed to support SRL in online environments were analyzed. Our findings indicate that: (1) most of the studies do not evaluate the effect on learners’ SRL strategies; (2) the use of interactive visualizations has a positive effect on learners’ motivation; (3) the use of the social comparison component has a positive effect on engagement and time management; and (4) there is a lack of models to match learners’ activity with the tools with SRL strategies. Finally, we present the lessons learned for guiding the community in the implementation of tools to support SRL strategies in MOOCs.