CAREER: The Role of Self-Regulated Learning in Students' Understanding of Science with Hypermedia

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This project focuses on the role of self-regulatedlearning (SRL) in students' understanding of science with hypermedia. SRL isemerging as a significant issue in educational and psychological research. SRL is an active, constructive processwhereby learners set goals for their learning and then attempt to monitor,regulate, and control their cognition, motivation, and behavior in the serviceof those goals. SRL is guided and constrained by both personal characteristicsand the contextual features of the environment (Pintrich, 2000). The focus ofSRL research over the last three decades has been on learners' academic learningand achievement and has progressively included emphases on cognitive strategies,metacognition, motivation, and task engagement (for a recent review see Paris &Paris, 2001). The broad scope of SRL appeals to educational researchers who seekto understand how students become adept and independent in their educationalpursuits. Whether SRL is viewed as a set of skills that can be taught explicitlyor as developmental processes of self-regulation that emerge with experience(within a domain, topic, or task), teachers can provide information andopportunities to students of all ages that will help them become strategic,motivated, and independent learners. There are, however, several theoretical andempirical issues that need further research before practical classroomimplications can be put forth. How do students' regulate their own learning whenusing a hypermedia environment to learn about complex science topics? Whichprocesses related to self- and co-regulation do student pairs and teachers useduring collaborative learning of complex science topics with hypermedia? Whatkinds of instructional conditions are more effective in fostering SRL? How canscience teachers provide information and opportunities to students of all agesthat can help them become more strategic, motivated, and independent learners?Can SRL be taught explicitly as a set of skills or is it a developmental processthat emerges from experience (within a task, topic, or domain).This NSF Career project will explore thesequestions through research that forges new directions in the area of students'self-regulated learning of two complex science topics (the circulatory systemand ecological systems) with hypermedia environments (CircSysWeb and RiverWeb).In doing so, the research goals will be: (1) To scale-up research onself-regulated learning across developmental levels and contexts; (2) To examinethe role of self- and co-regulation during individual and collaborative learningwith hypermedia environments; (3) To examine the effectiveness ofco-construction of goals (between teacher and students) during learning ofscience with hypermedia environments; (4) To examine the effectiveness ofstrategy instruction training in fostering students' self- and co-regulatedlearning with hypermedia; and, (5) To examine the effectiveness of adaptiveweb-based hypermedia environments in detecting, modeling, and fosteringstudents' self- and co-regulated learning of science.