Self-regulated learning: what it is and how it affects education

People are not mere passive receptacles for the information that is presented to us, much less in an educational context. As students we must carry out an active task when processing, organizing and assimilating the contents of the classroom.

Self-regulated learning has a lot to do with the way in which people regulate our emotions, cognitions and behaviors applied to an academic context since learning cannot be separated from our emotional state, motivation and desires.

Developing skills for self-control of learning processes is essential to have high academic performance, something we are going to delve into next.

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What is self-regulated learning?

We speak of self-regulated learning when a student is capable of deliberately manage the cognitive and emotional processes that are involved in their learning. The learner is able to select those strategies that he considers most beneficial and efficient at the time of learning, regulating his emotional state and organizing himself to achieve his goals. The capacity for self-regulation is closely related to academic success and student performance.

Among the most prominent researchers about the idea of ​​self-regulated learning we find the figure of Barry Zimmerman, who argues that self-regulation is not a mental ability or synonymous with academic performance, but rather is a process of self-direction by which the student transforms her mental abilities, whatever they may be, into abilities academic. Self-regulated learning not only implies the mastery of a mental skill, but it is also related to having a great self-awareness and self-motivation.

Within any traditional educational context, it is common to see that the most novice students rely on the feedback from others, comparing their performance and seeing how better or worse they have done compared to the the rest. These types of students usually associate their "failure" to some deficiency with which they were born which they cannot remedy. In contrast, more experienced students who do know how to manage their learning identify when and why they have failed, in order to focus on how to correct their mistakes and improve their weaknesses.

Zimmerman argues that self-regulation It is not an inherited trait, something that some students simply have and others do not, but rather a way of behaving, a habit. Self-regulation involves the selective use of specific processes that must be personally adapted to each learning task. When we say that a student performs self-regulated learning, we mean that she is regulating her own behavior, focusing it on the acquisition of an academic content, skill or task.

Characteristics of self-regulated learners

As we said, self-regulation is not a trait that some simply possess and others not from birth. This ability can be trained if we focus on those capacities that, if improved, will serve to make learning more efficient and autonomous.

Students who self-regulate their learning are actively involved in the process of acquiring new contents, thus making that knowledge not only more personal but also deeper.

Self-regulated learners show an active participation during the learning process, developing metacognitive skills, controlling the influence of their emotions in the process and regulating both their motivation and behavior. Thus, teaching and training these skills to non-self-regulated students will equip them with tools to manage your own learnings, resulting in higher performance academic.

Next we will see the main characteristics that define students with a self-regulated learning pattern.

1. Use of cognitive strategies

Students who show self-regulated learning know, identify and know how to use cognitive strategies that allow them to understand, process, organize, elaborate and retrieve information of the contents seen in the classroom or extracted from academic resources.

2. Development of metacognitive skills

These students develop metacognitive skills to know how to plan the task they are going to do, either in the form of an academic paper or the study itself. They direct various mental processes necessary to achieve the goal set.

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3. Emotional control

Self-regulated students develop, modify, and control those emotions that are positive for learning and feel motivation, enthusiasm, pleasure and satisfaction towards the realization of the task.

4. Task planning

Self-regulated students plan homework appropriately, anticipating how long it will take them to do it, choosing a favorable environment for their learning and, in case they have not understood the content or have doubts, they are assertive enough to ask their teacher or other classmates about these issues.

5. Pay attention

They strive to keep their attention on the task, avoiding being distracted.

Strategies to encourage self-regulated learning

Taking into account all these characteristics we can understand that a self-regulated student is one who is aware of the importance of assuming an active role in their learning. Consequently, adjust your cognitive and emotional processes to function properly. This way you can respond to the task, achieve the goals you set for yourself and have a positive performance.

Developing a self-regulated learning pattern is something that requires the help of pedagogues, teachers and psychologists involved in educational contexts. Although this type of learning is perfected as one grows and advances in the different educational levels, it is always recommended that students teachers, who in addition to being experts in the content they teach should also be experts in teaching tools that make teaching more autonomous and efficient. learning.

For this reason, strategies aimed at promoting self-regulated learning must meet the following objectives:

• Teach metacognition, cognitive and behavioral skills.
• Develop the ability to recognize when it is useful to use one strategy or another.
• Motivate students to use the strategies taught.

There are several didactic models that serve to promote self-regulated learning at any age and type of student. It is essential to provide systematic support that allows students to work independently with the study they have to do. That is why below we will see some strategies that allow us to promote self-regulated learning.

1. Self-observation

Students must learn to assess and monitor whether or not the study strategies they are applying are effective. If not, they must be able to modify or readjust what is necessary to make their learning effective. This is why they must become aware of their own cognitive processes in front of their emotional state, motivations, time of the task and level of effort.

For example, within the observation it would be to detect when they are not understanding the content that has been explained, analyze their level of understanding of the task and verify that they are willing to learn between others.

2. Modeling

Human beings learn to behave using the rest of our peers as models, that is, we imitate the behavior of others, be it good or bad. Teachers are key figures who have a very important influence on the modeling of their students, since they are their behavioral and knowledge referents apart from their own parents.

For this reason, the teacher must be an example, experimentally explaining the contents, teaching specific behavior patterns that his students must acquire and, of course, show autonomous forms of study and expansion of their knowledge, promoting self-regulated learning and emotional control and volitional.

3. Social support

Students should be provided with social support in their learning process. That is to say, both the teacher and the rest of the class group should be a source of protection and teaching for the learner, who during the first steps of learning will not be entirely sure what to do, fearing to err.

As the course progresses, the student will gain more confidence in her own abilities, understanding that failure does not mean being a failure. incompetent and that with his willpower he will be able to assimilate the class contents and exceed the goals and objectives that are proposed in the field academic.

As the individual becomes more independent, social support is progressively withdrawn. This does not mean that it is neglected, it is simply not given so much help nor is it so pending of him when he sees that he can already be actively involved in the construction of his own knowledge.

4. Self-reflective practice

The last part of the self-regulation process is self-reflective practice. The student should be able to take a moment to think about how he has done the task, if she has acquired the skill that is demanded of her or has been responsible enough when studying. Self-regulated learning it is only possible when the individual has the ability to reflect on their own learning process, selecting and adjusting those strategies that may be most useful to you.

Bibliographic references

• Nuñez, J.C., Solano, P., González - Pienda, J. and Posarió, P. (2006). Self-regulated learning as a means and goal for education. Papers of the Psychologist, 27 (3), 139-146.
• Ruiz Martin, H. (2020). How do we learn? A Scientific Approach to Learning and Teaching (1st Edition). Editorial Graó.
• Torrano, F. and González, M. C. (2004). Self-regulated learning: present and future of research. Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology, 2 (1), 1-33.
• Torrano, F., Fuentes, J. L., and Soria, M. (2017). Self-regulated learning: state of the art and psycho-pedagogical challenges. Educational Profiles, 39 (156), 160-173.
• Zimmerman, B.J. (2002). Becoming self-regulated learned: An overview. Theory into Practice, 41, 64-72.