Students’ Self-Regulated Learning in Mathematics: An Examination of Beliefs, Monitoring, and Control

Abstract

This dissertation explores students’ self-regulated learning within the mathematics context. An overarching conclusion from the general self-regulated learning literature is that students are poor self-regulators. This conclusion is based on survey and experimental, lab-based research demonstrating that students underuse effective study strategies, like retrieval practice and interleaving (Hartwig et al., 2022; Karpicke et al., 2009; Tauber et al., 2013); and that posttest performance is lower when students have to self-regulate their use and amount of practice (Badali et al., 2022, 2023; Dunlosky & Rawson, 2015). I explore the generalizability of this conclusion to college students learning mathematics by examining students’ study strategy use, study strategy beliefs, and relations between students’ monitoring, control, and learning. Chapter 2 reports on two online surveys that explore study strategy use and beliefs for mathematics, and contrast this with a domain that involves less problem solving: social sciences. Many students reported using effective study strategies, like studying worked examples and problem solving for their mathematics learning, and students believed these study strategies to be effective. Moreover, there was evidence of domain-specificity, as study strategy use and belief differed across domains. Chapter 3 was conducted in an authentic learning environment, and explored college students’ study strategy use and beliefs, and relations between study strategy use and calculus midterm scores. Perceived effectiveness of study strategies positively correlated with study strategy use, while perceived effort did not correlate with study strategy use. I identified only one significant correlation between study strategy use (ineffective study strategies) and midterm performance, and this relation was marginal after accounting for prior achievement. Chapter 4 reported on two experiments that examined the effectiveness of participants’ self-regulated learning choices, and explored relations between monitoring, control, and learning. Contrary to my hypotheses, allowing participants to self-regulate how much and/or what study strategies they used did not negatively affect their posttest performance. I also found evidence that prior knowledge, which is often not measured, informed monitoring and control processes. If we wish to increase mathematics learning, our theories of how students self-regulate their learning need to at least be somewhat domain-specific.