Multimedia Self-Regulated Learning Training Designs Can Boost Intervention Fidelity and Train Students’ Academic Performance in Biology

• In Event: Motivating Effective Strategy Use Through Interventions

Abstract

Objective & Theoretical Framework
Models of the self-regulated learning (SRL) process by Zimmerman (2000), Winne and Hadwin (1998), and Efklides (2011) propose that learners’ engagement in challenging tasks benefits from a top down approach that involves appraising task affordances and constraints, goal-setting, planning how to pursue that goal, and enactment of strategies during goal pursuit that are then monitored and adapted until the current goal is met. Students struggle to acquire and apply this complex set of skills. Many training programs have been designed to develop learners’ skills, and meta-analyses of them indicate they are modestly effective and vary in their success (e.g., Dignath et al., 2008; Jansen et al., 2019). Many are also time intensive programs that require face-to-face meetings and extensive time from students and teachers that could otherwise be spent on course topics. Theobald (2021) reviewed digital SRL trainings and found promising effects on learning outcomes at lower time and effort cost, though these too varied in their effectiveness and require investigation into their moderating features. Even in brief, scalable, digital interventions, time costs and completion rates limit the broader impact of SRL training on learning outcomes.

We tested the effectiveness of one such digital SRL training we designed in alignment with Hattie & Donoghue’s (2016) recommendations that each learning skill be introduced at a surface level, rehearsed and elaborated to consolidate knowledge of it, and further to promote transfer of the skill to future tasks. In this study, we test the effectiveness of this digital SRL skill training intervention in a community college setting where 50% of learners struggle and ultimately retake a gateway biology course and might benefit from theory-aligned SRL skill development.

Methods & Data
Participants included 242 students enrolled in #16 sections of an Anatomy and Physiology I course (80% women; 36% Latino, 27% White, 21% Asian; 46% first generation college students) who were randomly assigned to complete (a) digital modules of a SRL skill training that developed skill in use of cognitive strategies, metacognitive planning and monitoring aligned to course goals, and behavioral and environmental regulation or (b) a time-equivalent multimedia biology activity involving active reading and knowledge testing with feedback.   

Results
Completion rates of the multimedia SRL Skill Training reached 90%, far exceeding prior completion rates of the prior, reading-intensive version (~50%). Time cost was cut from a 90-120 minute interquartile range to 60-90 minutes. Exam scores between the experimental SRL Skill Training and the business-as-usual Active Biology Learning conditions were observed to differ across eight exams and confer a 10-point benefit to the SRL training condition. Analyses of learning behaviors by condition and specific effects for first-generation college students and minoritized groups will be reported at the conference.   

Significance
Digital skill trainings continue to improve academic performances, and multimedia designs are lowering costs and barriers to trainings that develop SRL skills. Providing these trainings at course outset can provide more equitable opportunities to learn by increasing learner’s propensity and ability to self-regulate and complete challenging STEM learning tasks.

Authors

• Matthew L. Bernacki, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Leiming Ding, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Sirui Ren, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Erin Windsor, College of Southern Nevada

• Nancy Webb, College of Southern Nevada

• Jonathan C. Hilpert, University of Nevada - Las Vegas