Open Access

Charlotte Christine Dignath

• The purpose of this thesis was to investigate different aspects of the promotion of selfregulated learning in primary and secondary school education by focussing on its effectiveness, and on its assessment from different perspectives. Theoretically, the thesis is based on contemporary social-cognitive and constructivist theories of self-regulated learning. Two meta-analyses were conducted, an observation instrument was developed which was tested and employed in two observation studies, and a multi-method study was conducted to investigate different perspectives on the topic. Common to all studies is the evaluation of different aspects of the promotion of self-regulated learning among students. The results of this investigation are reported in four research articles (Studies 1-4), which have been accepted for publication (Study 1 and 2) or submitted to scientific peer reviewed journals (Study 3 and 4). The data are analyzed by applying a multi-method approach, using several sources of data (primary studies, self-reports, video data, interviews) and diverse methods (meta-analysis, observation analysis, survey analysis). The present data generally indicate that self-regulated learning can be enhanced both at primary and secondary school. The results of the first and the second study showed that primary and secondary school students partly benefit from different training characteristics. However, there were also common aspects of effective training characteristics that hold for both school levels. Moreover, the third study revealed that it was possible to develop an instrument to observe teachers’ promotion of self-regulated learning in a reliable way, which can be applied in several contexts. The results indicated that the stability of teachers’ promotion of selfregulated learning varies among the school subjects. Furthermore, the results showed that only little instruction of self-regulated learning takes place in primary and secondary school mathematics lessons. Yet, secondary school teachers showed more promotion of cognitive strategies than primary school teachers did, although the former included more constructivist characteristics in the learning environment. The observation studies produced a rich pool of data, serving as pilot studies for future studies with a larger sample sizes that are needed to further strengthen the results. As the fourth study indicated, teacher ratings differ significantly from video-based observations in perceiving their promotion of self-regulated learning. However, for some aspects they agree with their students’ perception. Finally, it was found that students’ perception on their teachers’ promotion of self-regulated learning had the highest impact on their self-regulation competence. In the future, it will be crucial to include the instruction of self-regulated learning from a theoretical and a practical perspective in the teacher training curriculum. Moreover, in future research the implementation of the promotion of self-regulated learning should be investigated, and in experimental settings different ways of supporting such an implementation should be examined. A close collaboration with teachers would be helpful to get deeper insights into teachers’ behaviour and attitudes. The promotion of self-regulated learning should start as early as in primary school as students are already able to learn it then and as it takes many years to develop it fully. In addition, when investigating teachers’ promotion of self-regulated learning, the school subject should be taken into account during assessment. Long-term measurements could acknowledge such a potential instability. Moreover, in further studies, observation data of a large sample of teachers should be gathered in order to get a representative overview of teachers’ promotion of self-regulated learning. Furthermore, research on the promotion of self-regulated learning should account for the impact of students’ perspectives referring on this.
• Dem Konzept des selbstregulierten Lernens kommt eine wachsende Bedeutung zu als eine Kompetenz, die Lernende im Zuge des Lebenslangen Lernens brauchen, und die auch nach der schulischen Erstausbildung während der höheren akademischen oder beruflichen Ausbildung nicht an Bedeutung verliert (EU Council, 2002). Angestoßen durch internationale Vergleichsstudien der letzten Jahre wie TIMSS und PISA, bei denen in zahlreichen Ländern ein Mangel an Selbstregulationskompetenz bei den Schülern festgestellt wurde (vgl. z.B. OECD, 2004), hat sich die Forschung zunehmend damit beschäftigt, wie Schülern selbstreguliertes Lernen vermittelt werden kann. Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Untersuchung verschiedener Aspekte der Vermittlung selbstregulierten Lernens im Primar- und Sekundarschulbereich mit Fokus auf dessen Wirksamkeit und Erfassung aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven. Zwei Meta-Analysen wurden durchgeführt, ein Beobachtungsinstrument wurde entwickelt, das in zwei Beobachtungsstudien zum Einsatz kam, sowie eine multi-methodale Studie wurde durchgeführt, um die verschiedenen Perspektiven zur Vermittlung selbstregulierten Lernens zu erfassen. Alle vier Studien haben die Evaluation verschiedener Aspekte der Vermittlung selbstregulierten Lernens in der Schule gemeinsam. Die Ergebnisse dieser Studien werden in vier wissenschaftlichen Artikeln berichtet (Study 1 – Study 4), die zur Publikation angenommen (Study 1 und Study 2) bzw. bei wissenschaftlichen peer-reviewed Zeitschriften zur Begutachtung eingereicht sind (Study 3 und Study 4). Die Daten wurden mit Hilfe multipler Methoden analysiert, wobei auf unterschiedliche Datenquellen zurückgegriffen wurde (Primärstudien, Fragebogendaten, Videodaten) und unterschiedliche Auswertungsmethoden zum Einsatz kamen (Meta-Analyse, Beobachtungsverfahren, Korrelationen und Regressionen).