Strategic Motivation and Learning Trajectories: How Promotion and Prevention Foci Shape Students’ Metacognitive Monitoring Across a Semester

• In Event: AERA Research in Progress Roundtable Session Three
  In Invited Roundtable: Research-in-Progress RT063 (Friday)

Abstract

This study investigates how students’ metacognitive monitoring strategies evolve over a semester and whether these change trajectories are predicted by their initial motivational orientations. Grounded in Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) and Regulatory Focus Theory (RFT) frameworks, we analyze longitudinal data from 680 undergraduates in an introductory psychology course, collected across four time points. Using multilevel growth curve modeling, we investigate how promotion and prevention motivations—assessed at the start of the semester—predict students' trajectories of using positive (tracking what is known) and negative (tracking what is unknown) monitoring strategies. Findings will deepen understanding of motivational dynamics in SRL and inform targeted instructional interventions.

Authors

• Yucheng Bao, Vanderbilt University

• Cristina D. Zepeda, Vanderbilt University