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O022-O663/89/J00.75
330
BARRY J. ZIMMERMAN
BEHAVIORAL
SELF-REGULATION
ENVIRONMENTAL
SELF-BEGULATTON
STRATEGY USE
ENACTIVE FEEDBACK
331
vidual's self-efficacy estimates. In another study of the importance of modeling, Schunk (1981) found that demonstrations
of mathematical problem-solving methods by an adult model
affected fourth-grade students' perceptions of efficacy and
division skill. Youngsters with a background of low arithmetic
achievement received modeling of division operations. Students exposed to a model's strategies for correct solutions
during training displayed significantly higher self-efficacy and
more division accuracy during posttesting than did youngsters
in a control group.
Conversely, it is assumed that students' self-efficacy beliefs
can affect their manipulation and choice of learning environments. Zimmerman (1985) reported evidence that experimental efforts to change elementary school pupils' perceptions of
efficacy also affected their choice of learning tasks. In this
investigation, tangible or verbal rewards were given to indicate
efficacy (i.e. for performing better than most pupils in thenclass) or nonefficacy (i.e., for merely working) on a block
design task of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children
(wise). From a social cognitive perspective, efficacy rewards
were hypothesized to improve pupils' perceptions of efficacy,
which in turn were assumed to increase pupils' free choice
and value ratings of the task (two measures of intrinsic motivation). Zimmerman found that rewards for efficacy increased
pupils* self-efficacy perceptions and theirfreechoice and value
ratings of this intellectual task more than did rewards for
nonefficacy. For pupils given rewards for efficacy, the increases from pretesting to immediate posttesting were approximately 48% for self-efficacy, 146% for task choice, and 29%
for task interest. The corresponding changes for youngsters
given nonefficacy rewards were a 16% increase in self-efficacy,
a 39% decrease in task choice, and a 12% increase in task
interest. The tangible versus verbal nature of rewards was
unimportant in comparison with the self-efficacy implications.
Subprocesses in self-regulation. Social cognitive theorists
assume that self-regulation involves three classes of subprocesses: self-observation, self-judgment, and self-reaction (Bandura, 1986). These performance-related subprocesses are assumed to interact with each other in reciprocal fashion. For
example, listening to an audiotape of one's speech (selfobservation) is assumed to affect self-judgments of progress
in acquiring rhetorical skill. These self-judgments, in turn, are
expected to determine one's subsequent willingness to continue this self-instructive practice (a self-reaction).
There is growing evidence of the importance of these three
classes of self-regulatory processes on students* academic performance. For example, Mace and Kratochwill (1985) studied
the effects of one form of self-observation and two forms of
self-judgment on the speech fluency of college students. The
self-observation procedure involved self-recording verbal nonfluencies (e.g., "urn," "ah," "er," "uh," and so forth), using a
mechanical counter while talking on a current topic for 9
min. The self-judgment procedures involved (a) setting a goal
for reducing nonfluencies and/or (b) comparing the mechanical counter outcomes with the goal and stating aloud when
successful, "I did a really good job of showing self-control."
Students in a control group were not taught any self-observation or self-judgment procedures; they merely talked on the
332
BARRY J. ZIMMERMAN
333
there is evidence that anxiety can impede various metacogstrategy, he will position himself to read the notes better and
nitive processes, particularly action control processes (which
will rehearse the key word between musical numbers to
are similar to behavior control processes). Kuhl (1982) develfacilitate recall. His use of this covert verbalization strategy
oped a scale to measure action controlthat is, one's ability
will be continued if monitoring reveals that it is successful in
to carry out intended actions. This self-rating measure is
reducing the number of sour notes during rehearsal. Accorddesigned to assess learners' disposition to use volitional procing to this analysis, students* effectiveness in planning and
esses effectively to protect intended actions from competing
controlling their use of personal, behavioral, and environmeninternal states (such as ruminating thoughts of prior failures)
tal strategies to learn is one of the most visible signs of their
or external conditions (such as high task difficulty or distracdegree of self-regulation (Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons,
tions). Kuhl found that learners' action control scores were
1986).
negatively correlated with a measure of anxiety. Thus anxiety
Metacognitive decision making depends also on learners1
and low self-efficacy perceptions can undermine students* use
long-term goals, according to the proposed definition of selfof metacognitive control processes and can inhibit setting
regulated learning. The boy in the illustration may have
long-term goals.
dropped out of the school band after being ridiculed rather
Behavioral influences. Three classes of student responding
than adopting a self-instruction strategy if he lacked longare of particular relevance to analyses of self-regulated learnterm musical goals for himself (e.g., becoming a professional
ing: self-observation, self-judgment, and self-reaction. Almusician). A particularly effective strategy for reaching longthough it is assumed that each of these classes of responding
term goals involves setting intermediate goals that are based
is influenced by various covert personal (self-) processes, as
on their specificity, difficulty level, and proximity in time
well as by environmental processes, each class subsumes
(Bandura, 1982a). With regard to specificity, research has
actions that are observable, trainable, and interactive. For
shown that students given general goals such as "Do your
these reasons, self-observation, self-judgment, and self-reacbest** do not improve in motivation or learning (Locke, Shaw,
tion are treated in my model as behavioral influences on selfSaari, & Latham, 1981). In addition, self-regulated learners
regulated learning.
can strategically set goals at a plausible difficulty level. Extensive research on children's achievement motivation (e.g.,
Self-observation refers to students' responses that involve
McClelland, 1985; Smith, 1969) has indicated that youngsters
systematically monitoring their own performance. Observing
with low achievement motivation have tended to set goals for
oneself can provide information about how well one is prothemselves that were either too high or two low to be of much
gressing toward one's goals. Self-observation is influenced by
assistance.
such personal processes as self-efficacy, goal-setting, and metacognitive planning, as well as by behavioral influences. Two
Goals can be set on the basis of their proximity in time.
common behavioral methods of self-observation are (a) verbal
Proximal goal setting is important, according to Bandura
or written reporting and (b) quantitative recording of one's
(1986), because "most anticipated outcomes are too far off,
actions and reactions. There is extensive evidence that
or too general, to shepherd specific actions in immediate
prompting students to keep records affects their learning,
situations that present many uncertainties and complexities.
motivation, and self-efficacy. For example, Schunk (1983c),
People have to create for themselves proximal guides and selfusing several recording procedures, trained groups of elemenmotivators for courses of action that lead to distal attaintary school children with poor achievement records to subments*' (p. 336). Bandura and Schunk (1981) reported evitract. One group of youngsters was taught to self-record the
dence that elementary school pupils with gross deficits and
number of pages of the workbook that they completed at the
low motivation in arithmetic were aided by setting proximal
end of each class period. In a second group, an adult recorded
goals for themselves. Youngsters who set page completion
the number of workbook pages that the children completed.
goals daily for their mathematics seatwork displayed signifiIn comparison with a no-recording control group, children in
cantly better intrinsic interest, perceptions of self-efficacy, and
both the self-recording and the external-recording groups
acquisition of arithmetic skills than did youngsters who relied
displayed significantly greater self-efficacy, skill, and task peron longer term goals. The effects of proximal goal setting were
sistence. Self-recording proved to be as effective as external
impressive in comparison with those of distal goal-setting:
recording on all three measures. Children who self-recorded
The numerical advantages of proximal goals during posttesthad 116% higher self-efficacy, 129% more skill, and 65%
ing were approximately 60% higher self-efficacy, 95% higher
more task persistence during posttesting than did youngsters
arithmetic skill, and 2500% higher intrinsic interest.2
in
the no-recording control group. This study indicated how
Students' long-term goals and use of metacognitive control
processes are theorized to be dependent on perceptions of self- systematic observation of one*s own learning progress can
efficacy and affect, as well on self-regulatory knowledge. Ban- produce positive self-reactive effects during student learning.
A second class of student self-regulated response involves
dura (1986) suggested that "those who have a high sense of
self-judgment. Self-judgment refers to students' responses that
self-efficacy set themselves more challenging goals to accominvolve systematically comparing their performance with a
plish** (p. 348). In support of this hypothesis, Bandura and
Cervone (1986) reported evidence that subjects' self-set goals
were correlated significantly with their estimates of self-effi2
cacy (r = .54) under feedback conditions in which their
1 calculated these and subsequent comparative percentages by
performance appeared grossly substandard. Affective states
dividing the difference between the two means in question by the
can also influence self-regulated functioning. For example,
smaller mean.
334
BARRY J. ZIMMERMAN
335
336
BARRY J. ZIMMERMAN
In addition to modeling and verbal persuasion, Zimmerman and Martinez-Pons (1986) identified two other sources
of social support widely used by self-directed learners: (a)
direct assistancefromteachers, other students, or adults and
(b) literary and other symbolic forms of information such as
diagrams, pictures, and formulas. These researchers found
that self-initiated efForts to obtain either form of social support
was predictive of the students' achievement track in school.
This investigation will be described in detail later.
There is research indicating that physical assistance can
enable young elementary school children to acquire a complicated conditional rule. Rosenthal and Zimmerman (1973)
taught these pupils to select the correct number and color of
spools on the basis of clocklike stimuli through modeling and/
or physical guidance of their hands. Each procedure proved
to be effective separately and when combined with the other
instructional procedure in facilitating rule learning and transfer. In a recent review, Rosenthal and Downs (1985) provided
an analysis of a wide variety of symbolic, social, and physical
aids that can be used to self-regulate learning. They reported
extensive evidence of the effectiveness of such aids as structured manuals, guides for processing, prompts and textual
supports, reviews, and reductive codes when used alone or in
combination.
The final type of environmental influence on student selfregulated learning that will be considered is the structure of
the learning context, particularly such elements as the academic task and setting. According to social cognitive theory
(Mischel&Peake, 1982; Zimmerman, 1983), human learning
remains highly dependent on the social environmental context from which it sprang. This assumption is extended in my
formulation to self-regulated learning. Changing an academic
task to increase the difficulty level or changing the academic
setting from a noisy to a quiet place to study is expected to
affect self-regulated learning. A growing body of evidence
indicates that student judgments of self-efficacy are directly
influenced by the difficulty of the tasks (Bandura, 1986).
In a recent observational study of self-regulation during
writing, Marcus (1988) found that students who displayed
superior ability on a standardized test of writing regulated
their immediate physical environment more effectively than
did students with poor writing ability. Students were brought
to an experimental room to write a paper on jogging. The
setting contained a variety of stimuli that could facilitate or
impede writing. Marcus found that 1 lth-grade students with
superior writing ability were more likely to adjust the sound
of a television set and to use a clock to monitor their performance while they wrote their themes than were students of
lower ability. These results indicate that high-ability writers
displayed greater awareness of the need to self-regulate environmental stimuli such as televisions and clocks than did less
able writers.
Each of the environmental influences just described is
assumed to be reciprocally interactive with personal and
behavioral influences. When learners become self-directed,
personal influences are mobilized to strategically regulate
behavior and the immediate learning environment. Self-directed learners are assumed to understand the impact of the
environment on them during acquisition and to know how
Table 1
Self-Regulated Learning Strategies
Categories/Strategies
1. Self-evaluating
Definitions
Statements indicating student-initiated
evaluations of the quality or progress of their work; e.g., "I check
over my work to make sure I did it
right."
2. Organizing and trans- Statements indicating student-initiated
forming
overt or covert rearrangement of instructional materials to improve
learning; e.g., "I make an outline
before I write my paper."
3. Goal-setting and plan- Statements indicating students1 setting
of educational goals or suhgoals and
ning
planning for sequencing, timing,
and completing activities related to
those goals; e.g., "First, I start studying two weeks before exams, and I
pace myself."
4. Seeking information
Statements indicating student-initiated
efforts to secure further task information from nonsocial sources
when undertaking an assignment;
e.g., "Before beginning to write the
paper, I go to the library to get as
much information as possible concerning the topic."
5. Keeping records and
Statements indicating student-initiated
monitoring
efforts to record events or results;
e.g., "I took notes of the class discussions"; "I kept a list of the words
I got wrong."
6. Environmental struc- Statements indicating student-initiated
turing
efforts to select or arrange the physical setting to make learning easier;
e.g., "I isolate myself from anything
that distracts me"; "I turned off the
radio so I can concentrate on what I
am doing.1*
7. Self-consequating
Statements indicating student arrangement or imagination of rewards or
punishment for success or failure;
e.g., uIf I do well on a test, I treat
myself to a movie."
8. Rehearsing and mem- Statements indicating student-initiated
efforts to memorize material by
orizing
overt or covert practice; e.g., "In
preparing for a math test, I keep
writing the formula down until I remember it."
9-11. Seeking social as- Statements indicating student-initiated
sistance
efforts to solicit help from peers (9),
teachers (10), and adults (11); e.g.,
"If I have problems with math assignments, I ask a friend to help."
12-14. Reviewing recStatements indicating student-initiated
ords
efforts to reread notes (12), tests
(13), or textbooks (14) to prepare
for class or further testing; e.g.,
"When preparing for a test, I review
my notes."
15. Other
Statements indicating learning behavior that is initiated by other persons
such as teachers or parents, and all
unclear verbal responses; e.g., "I just
do what the teacher says."
337
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Accepted March 22, 1989