How Classroom Contexts Might Foster Self-Regulation and Self-Efficacy During Literacy Tasks: Studying Individuals in Context

• In Event: Researching Self- and Coregulated Learning as Situated in Contexts: Implications for Theory, Research, and Practice

Abstract

This study was motivated by a desire to better understand how to support self-regulation (SRL) and self-efficacy (SE) of intermediate-level students with and without learning disabilities (LD) in the context of literacy tasks. Students with LD often struggle with reading and writing (Garcia & Fidalgo, 2008; Kavale et al., 2005; Klassen & Lynch, 2007), and with the self-regulating processes so key to successful literacy performance (Bondanza et al., 1998; Zimmerman & Risemberg, 1997). But also essential to SRL and successful literacy performance is students’ self-efficacy (SE) (Klassen, 2010; Pajares, 2002; Schunk & Zimmerman, 2003). SE refers to students’ beliefs about their capabilities to perform at designated levels (Bandura, 1986, 1997). Students with LD tend to have either low (Hampton & Mason, 2003; Lackaye et al., 2006; Tabassam & Grainger, 2002) or unrealistically high SE (Klassen, 2002, 2008), both of which have been found to interfere with successful learning engagement. Thus, essential is advancing understanding about how SRL and SE are shaped within classroom settings.

To address this topic, this study drew on Bandura’s (1986, 1997) social cognitive model to conceptualize and investigate how qualities of learning environments designed to support SRL (e.g., see Perry et al., 2004) might also shape students’ construction of SE. Further, this study examined how SRL and SE unfolded within three common types of classroom placements (inclusive, support, pull-out). To study SE and SRL in these classrooms, an instrumental multiple-case study design was used that unfolded in three phases: (1) identifying and observing classrooms designed to support SRL in different kinds of placements; (2) selecting as cases seven Grade 4 or 5 students who varied in achievement levels; and (3) collecting and analyzing data about student learning in context using a rich combination of observations, interviews, probes, questionnaires, and artifacts collected before, during and after students’ engagement in literacy tasks (Zimmerman, 2008).

Analyses of within- and cross-case patterns focused on: (1) how SRL-supportive instructional features were instantiated in different kinds of placement contexts, and (2) how features of contexts could be related to students’ SRL and SE. Findings revealed teachers consistently implementing some instructional features with potential to support SRL (e.g., providing choices), with few differences across types of placements. Less encouraging was that the range of SRL-supportive instructional features was limited, and that the teachers rarely supported students to take up opportunities for self-regulation (e.g., to make choices strategically). Central to the theme of this session was the finding that students’ SRL and SE were highly context dependent. Students did bring SE perceptions about literacy tasks to contexts that were influential in how they approached learning. However, task-specific self-efficacy during learning also varied substantially in relation to contextual features (e.g., the provision of choices was most often related to higher levels of SE). Further, analyses revealed complex individual-context interactions (e.g., students’ interpretations of and the nature of choices interacted to influence whether or not a given choice was supportive of SE). In the poster, key implications for theory, research and practice will be highlighted.

Author

• Jennifer Scott, The University of British Columbia