Social-Cognitive Theory
The foundation of the social cognitive theory stems from Albert Bandura’s social learning theory, who explored the social learning factors in self-regulation as a triadic formulation, where he described behaviour as product of both self generated and external sources of influence (Bandura, 1986 p.454). In essence, he views human functioning as a series of reciprocal interactions between behavioral, environmental, and personal variables. He described self-efficacy, as an individual’s confidence in his/her ability to organize and execute a given course of action in orders to attain/accomplish a specific goal (Schunk, 1989 p. 84).
Social cognitive theorists assume that self-efficacy is a key variable affecting self-regulated learning. In support of this assumption, previous research demonstrated, students with high self-efficacy have displayed better quality learning strategies and more self -monitoring of their learning outcomes than have students with low self-efficacy (Schunk, 1998 p.140) Consequently, researchers also found that students' perceptions of self-efficacy are positively related to such learning outcomes as task persistence, task choice, effective study activities, skill acquisition, and academic achievement. Students' c is assumed to influence their perceptions of self-efficacy, as well as the reverse (Hagen & Weinstein, 1995 p. 45).
The Social cognitive theory would be applicable to an off-campus university student [the author], as it addresses some of his concerns on how his experience, environment, and behavior affects how and what he learns. This student normally has access to an interactive online web-ct learning tool, provision of recommended reading materials and lists of extra further readings, all provided by the university. The student is required to complete a number of assignments [goals] based on the material presented and course content. The formal completion of these assignments, provide a mechanism that allows the student to apply his knowledge accurately and reliably, therefore increasing his/her confidence. For example, it is possible to read a whole book about self-regulated learning, but it is not until the student is actually able to disseminate the information or concepts learnt by successfully completing an academic assignment, that learning is complete to some degree. The interactive online tool and educational reading materials can provide extensive, repetitive practice until mastery and thus self-efficacy could be achieved.
Although low self- efficacy can be detrimental, effective self-regulation does not require that self-efficacy be enormously high, as previous research studies have shown that low self-efficacy can lead to greater mental effort and hence better learning (Garcia, 1995 p. 31). This notion could also be applicable to the off-campus post-graduate student who has been detached from the usual academic demands of university for quiet some time. The student would probably experience a great deal of anxiety and concern, as well as the possibility of failure due to the fact that his academic writing skills may not be up to standards. However, rather than being paralyzed by his concerns, anxieties, and expectations of failure, he uses these to fuel up his efforts, working harder in order to achieve positive outcomes.
Self-regulated learning from a social-cognitive perspective
The importance to academic achievement of self-regulation in learning has been well established by the work of Bandura, Zimmerman, Schunk and Pintrich in the Social cognitive learning model. As previously mentioned, the theory has provided the theoretical base for the development of a model, in self-regulated academic learning in which personal, contextual, and behavioral factors interact in such a way to allow opportunity for students to exercise control over their own learning, while at the same time setting limits to self-direction (Purdie, Hattie, & Douglas, 1996 p. 87).
From the social cognitive learning theory, there is growing evidence, of three very important classes of self-regulatory processes on students' academic performance. These are assumed to interact with each other in reciprocal manner and consist of self-observation, self-judgment, and self-reaction (Schunk, 1998 p.140).
Normally, at the commencement of learning activities/tasks, students have goals, such as, acquiring skills and knowledge, finishing assignments, and achieving good grades/results. During these activities, students observe, judge, and react to their perceptions of goal progress. In other words, as students observe aspects of their behaviors they judge them against standards and react positively or negatively, hence continuing their work or changing their task approach. Consequently, their evaluations and reactions set the stage for additional observations of the same behaviors or others (Purdie, Hattie, & Douglas, 1996 p. 88).
Self-observation is referred to students' responses, involving systematical monitoring of their own performance and it is believed to be it influenced by self-efficacy and goal-setting. Observing oneself can provide information about how well one is progressing toward one's goals. Behaviors can be assessed on such dimensions as quality, rate quantity, and originality, and hence allowing behavioral change to occur if necessary (Schunk, 1990 p. 72) there is extensive evidence that prompting students to self-record affects their learning motivation, and self-efficacy. When students with poor study habits self-record, they are often surprised to learn they waste much study time on non-academic activities. Such knowledge can motivate students to improve their studying. Consequently, sustained motivation depends on students believing that if they change their behavior, they experience better outcomes, valuing those outcomes, and feeling they can change those habits will result in growth of self-efficacy and their motivation for continued learning is sustained (Schunk, 1998 p. 140).
From the perspective of the post-graduate university student, weekly recordings of how many problems he managed to successfully triumph over, in the course of extracting and understanding the main concepts from his reading materials will indicate his progress.
Self- observation is needed but is considered insufficient for sustained self-regulation. A second class of student self-regulated response involves self-judgment. Self-judgment refers to students' responses that involve systematically comparing their performance with a standard or goal. This definition assumes that self-evaluation depends on such personal processes as self-efficacy, goal setting, and knowledge or standards, as well as self-observed responses. Knowledge of standards or goals can be derived from a variety of sources including social norms, temporal criteria such as earlier performance levels, or absolute criteria such as mastery tests or goals (Schunk, 1994 p. 77).
For the post-graduate university student, achieving an outstanding grade on his first assignment sets absolute standards for his next academic task. He will compare his performance with these standards, informing him of goal progress. Making progress enhances self-efficacy and sustains motivation. Another example would be comparing the performance of his first assignment with those of others by viewing the overall class performance provided by his university lecturer.
Finally, a third class of students' self-regulated response involves self-reactions to one's performance. As was the case with self-observation and self-judgment, learners' self-reactions involve such personal processes as goal setting, and self-efficacy perceptions, as well as behavioral outcomes. Self- reactions to goal progress may be evaluative or tangible. The evaluative reactions involve students’ beliefs about their progress. For example, the belief that one is making progress, together with anticipated satisfaction of goal accomplishment, enhances self-efficacy and sustains motivation to complete the task. On the other hand, negative evaluations would not necessarily decrease motivation if students believe they are capable of improving via enhanced effort or better use of strategies (Schunk, 1994 p.78). Sometimes, students react in tangible manner to academic progress by purchasing something they want or taking time off studying. Expected consequences of behavior instead of the consequences themselves are said to increase motivation. Rewards enhance self-efficacy when they are linked to student’s academic accomplishments. An example would be, a student receiving free time based on their mastery of skills. Self-efficacy is validated as student’s work and the task and note progress, and the actual reward further validates efficacy because it symbolizes greater competence (Schunk, 1989 p. 92 &93). From the above it could be said that Reward contingencies are important influences on students’ self-efficacy and assist development of self regulated learning.
In sum, the social cognitive view of self-regulated learning emphasizes the importance of self-efficacy beliefs, causal attributions, and goal setting in regulating behavior directed at accomplishing a learning task/activity.
The social-cognitive model of self- regulated learners via goal setting and perceived self-efficacy
Self-regulated learning has become an important aspect of student’s academic performance and achievement at the tertiary level. However, there is some concern about the number of students that do not become self-regulated learners and that know very little about the naturalistic development of self-regulated learning or about formal interventions to increase self regulated learning (Hofer, Yu & Pintrich, 1998 57). The university student is described as an adult learner who commands language, concepts, and experience with and about learning and thinking. These factors may assist the student to have better capabilities for metacognition and self-regulation than younger students.
The self-regulation model focuses attention on why and how students initiate and control their own learning. The how of self-regulated learning can be viewed in terms of the specific strategies used by students as they engage in learning tasks (Purdie, N., Hattie, J. & Douglas, G. 1996 p. 87). Because of the proposed triadic formulation in the social-cognitive model, environmental, personal, and behavioral influences affect one another. Therefore, external mechanisms for increasing personal self- regulation should be of interest to adult learners. It is assumed that students can be taught or prompted to become more self- regulated learners by acquiring effective strategies and by enhancing perceptions of self-efficacy. Students who implement self-regulated learning strategies are able to increase their personal control over their own behavior and immediate environment. According the available literature, there are several self-regulated learning strategies that could be implemented by students in order to foster and enhance their academic achievement. However for the purpose of this paper, goal setting and perceived self- efficacy will be discussed in great depth.
Essential to the successful management of one's learning is the identification of academic goals (Garavalia &. Gredler, 2002 p. 221). Goals are believed to affect motivation, achievement, and self-regulation and provide standards against which students can assess their learning progress (Schunk, & Ertmer, 1999 p. 251 & 252).
Theorists have drawn attention to two types of student goals, mastery goals and performance goals.
They postulated, that when students have mastery goals, their primary focus is on learning and mastering, the course material. The students value the learning process it-self; they often seek out challenging assignments and place more effort on the learning material, hence using more effective learning strategies while studying. On the other hand, these authors described students with performance goals, tending to focus on the outcome of their learning. These students are primary interested in acquiring a good grade and have a tendency to use less effective strategies (Smith, 2005 p. 38).
The student, undertaking the post-graduate course within the context of this paper, will come across with several complex and unfamiliar new concepts in the course content. In order to be able to gain complete understanding of these new concepts and achieve a sense of success in his learning outcome, he must adopt the mastery goals. This will allow him to focus in mastering the material by actively looking for strategies that will help him. Having mastery goals is linked with higher self-efficacy and successful self-regulated learning (Hagen and Weinstein, 1995 p 45).
In a study with university students, Garcia and Pintrich(in Hagen & Weinstein) concluded that while having mastery goals may have been most beneficial for learning, having commitment to earning high grades [performance goals] may also help students maintain self-efficacy an help them focus with learning the material required From this, it is observed that university students frequently have a combination of mastery and performance goals and both maybe beneficial to their learning process (Hagen and Weinstein, 1995 p 45).
Similarly, Hagen found a positive relationship between mastery and performance goals, which provide further support for viewing these two types of goals as complementary rather than contrasting. This study showed that both mastery and performance goals were positively related to self- efficacy, but only mastery goals were related to the use of self-regulated learning strategies (Hagen, 1995 p. 47). This suggests that while students often have both types goals, only the mastery goals will contribute to self-regulated learning.
Allowing students to set learning goals enhances self-efficacy in attaining them. Self-efficacy is increased as students note progress, attain goals, and set new challenges. Goals set too high or too low do not enhance self-regulated learning or achievement beliefs. Students perceive little progress toward lofty goals lowers self-efficacy and leads them to work halfheartedly and give up readily when they encounter difficulty. Easy goals do not produce high self-efficacy because they do not inform students about what they are capable of doing (Schunk, 1990 p. 74). In general terms, it could said, goal setting helps to motivate us towards achieving our goals and, when we achieve our goals, our needs are met.
The effects of goal setting on the students’ behavior depend on their properties, such as their specificity, proximity, and difficulty level.
Goals incorporating specific performance standards are believed to enhance learning and activate self-evaluations than general goals. Specific goals boost performance by greater specification of the amount of effort required for success and the self-satisfaction anticipated. Specific goals promote self-efficacy because progress is easy to gauge (Schunk, 1990 p. 77).
A study conducted to test interactive influence of two self-regulatory processes goal-setting and metacognitive awareness on students' performance concluded the following. Students who set clear and specific goals outperformed others, because they had a target goal, which provided a motivating challenge, and metacognitive awareness, which provided information about possible appropriate strategies for accomplishing the goal (Radley, & et al, 1992 p.304).
Proximal goals result in greater motivation than distant goals. It is easier to gauge progress toward a proximal goal, and the perception of progress raises self-efficacy. It has been positively correlated with enhancing self-regulated learning amongst students of all levels (Schunk, 1990 p. 77).
In another study where university students were assigned four different conditions: self-monitoring of proximal goals, self-monitoring of time studying [students received instruction on setting aside time for studying and on monitoring time spent], self-monitoring of distant goals [students set a comprehensive goal for each study session], and control [no goals]. It was noted that those students in the self-monitoring of proximal goals condition learned to set sub-goals for assigned readings and to monitor sub-goal progress. On the final exam, proximal-goal students scored higher than the other conditions. This effect was not due to time spent studying because students assigned to the self- monitoring of time-studying condition spent the most time. Proximal students also judged intrinsic interest in the course higher than those in the other conditions (Morgan, 1985 p. 624).
Similarly, Zimmerman and Kitsantas conducted a study where they compared the effectiveness of setting process [proximal] and outcome [distant] goals in the acquisition of a complex motor skill amongst university students. It concluded that those students who shifted goals developmentally from process to outcome goals surpassed classmates who adhered to only process goals who, in turn, exceeded classmates who used only outcome goals. It was also found that self-recording, a formal form of self-monitoring enhanced motor skill, self-efficacy, and self-reaction beliefs in all forms of goal settings (Zimmerman and Kitsantas, 1997 p.34).
Goal difficulty, or the level of task proficiency required as assessed against a standard, influences the effort learners expend to attain a certain goal. Assuming requisite skills, individuals expend greater effort to attain difficult goals than when standards are lower. Students initially may doubt whether they can attain difficult goals, but working toward them increases self-efficacy (Schunk, 1990 p. 77).
Given these definitions and descriptions, the post-graduate student in the current context is required to complete two academic essays papers, which will reflect his understanding of the topics covered during the semester. The faculty uses strategies that would allow the student some decision-making and some control over his academic work while maintaining integrity of the curriculum content. The essays questions are set to allow the student choose topics of interest within a prescribed topic list. According to Barry Zimmerman, this choice is imperative, as he points out that students must have some choice and control over their learning if self-regulated learning is to occur. Subsequently, this brings the student to the decision-making phase on how to develop goal-setting strategies that will successfully allow him to take on the essay papers. The student, very diligently has to set learning goals that are realistic and encouraging of self-efficacy. For instance he could concentrate in breaking down each essay paper [distant goal] into a number of steps, and each step could be turned into a series of attainable proximal goals, which are very positively correlated with enhancing self-regulated learning. In addition, the student should feel more efficacious about accomplishing the proximal goals and attaining each of these will help develop his overall sense of efficacy for producing a good essay paper (Schunk, 1989 p. 90 &91).
This multi-step plan could be described as the key to promoting healthier academic functioning, higher motivation and perceived self-efficacy, and self-regulated learning and performance across any academic work setting.
Conclusion
Although there are number of self-regulated learning strategies that a student can adopt, this paper only focused on goal setting and perceived self-efficacy. The goal of paper was to assist and enhance the author’s ability to become a self-regulated learner in an academic setting. In doing this, an attempt to demonstrate how important and useful the social-cognitive principles are in fostering self-regulatory skills for this university student was made. It illustrated, goal-setting and perceived self-efficacy as fundamental and commonly used components of self regulated learning. The findings showed that realistic and effective goal-setting strategies were strongly correlated with higher self-efficacy and higher motivation. Subsequently, the post-graduate student within the essay context was able to productively assess and understand the information presented. Therefore, becoming more self-regulated in adopting this strategy for future projects to come.
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