Cognitive optimism of distinctive initiatives to foster self-directed and self-regulated learning skills: A comparative analysis of conventional and blended-learning in undergraduate studies

Research has shown the importance of self-directed learning (SDL) and self-regulated learning (SRL) in learning. These terms are increasingly being used in both online learning and traditional settings. However, the similarities and differences have not been fully harnessed. The most renowned definition of SDL comes from Knowles (Knowles 1975) who described the term as a process from which an individual takes initiative with or without help in autonomously controlling their learning with regard to needs, setting learning goals, identifying resources for learning, deciding on appropriate learning strategies, and self-evaluating their learning outcomes. This SDL process is said to be a personality trait and construct (Brockett and Hiemstra 1991). Brockett and Hiemstra (1991) proposed a term called ‘self-direction in learning’, which referred to external characteristics of an instructional process and internal characteristics of the learners assuming the primary responsibilities of directing their learning experience. Similarly, to SDL, SRL ‘has been considered students’ independence in learning’ (Saks and Leijen 2014, p. 191).

Moreover, SRL is said to be an active process whereby learners set goals during their learning process and attempt to regulate, monitor, and control their cognition, behaviours, and motivation and are guided by their goals and environments (Pintrich 2000; Boekaerts et al. 2005). Furthermore, SRL is perceived as a learning and motivational processes that underpins learners’ assumption of individual responsibility to learn with or without an instructor (Zimmerman 2000). The SDL and SRL concepts activate metacognitive skills and intrinsic motivation, which are the key components in both cases (Loyens et al. 2008). Both these terms are featured as a combination of internal and external factors. Motivation, metacognition, and cognition factors represent SDL, while SRL involves traditional learning processes, which involves human collaboration (Cho and Jonassen 2009). Some reasons that these terms are being used synonymously are that ‘the personality perspective being the overlapping part of both constructs’ (Saks and Leijen 2014, p. 192).

In contrast between the two terms (SDL and SRL), the first concept originated from adult education in the 1970s to 1980s, whereas the second originated within the 21 century from educational psychology and cognitive psychology. Additionally, SDL is mostly used to describe learning activities outside of the traditional educational setting and involves aspects of designing learning environments (Saks and Leijen 2014). While SRL, in this case, is mostly studied in a school environment, it should not exclude the possibility of designing a personal learning environment (Loyens et al. 2008). Moreover, SRL has been considered a broader construct, encompassing concepts that are specific to a narrow area. Furthermore, SDL is also seen as a broader concept in the sense of exhibiting control and freedom by learners to manage their learning activities to a degree. In SDL, the learners decide and define their learning tasks, but in SRL, the instructor may also define the learning tasks (Robertson 2011; Loyens et al. 2008). Jossberger et al. (2010) mentioned that SDL is situated as a macro-level concept and that SRL is a micro-level concept (as seen in Fig. 1).

A self-directed learner is actively ready and willing to prepare, execute, and complete a given task independently and on time. The ability of the learners to learn how to self-direct their studies is a skilful way of self-regulating learning activities and performance. In addition, SRL is a micro-level concept, which is processed within and during the task execution. A study argued that SDL may include SRL but not the opposite. In other words, self-directed learners are supposed to self-regulate their learning, but self-regulated learners may not necessarily self-direct their learning (Jossberger et al. 2010). However, despite their similarities, the theoretical models, backgrounds, and dimensions are different. In comparing research methods applied to these terms, SDL is mostly studied with surveys and case studies, while SRL is studied using experiments and surveys (Saks and Leijen 2014).

Our study applied mixed methods of quantitative and qualitative data approaches. In the first study, we explored distinctive students self-directed and self-regulated learning skills using existing MOOC online self-regulated learning questionnaire (MOSQL) instrument comparing six dimensions: goal setting, task strategies, time management, environment structuring, help seeking and self-evaluation. The questions in this instrument were modified to suit our research objectives in both the first and second case studies. In order to collect the research data and to explore reasonable results from our investigation, both physical copy and online version of the questionnaires were provided and distributed to the blended-learning and conventional students in the first two case studies to gather their self-regulated learning skills and general demographics. In order to further capture in-depth the self-regulated learning skills of the individual students, we conducted additional focus group interviews to aid our data collection processes within the blended course setting. The data analysis was done with descriptive statistical analysis, thematic analysis and content analysis.

In the second study, the research participant took part in an individual interview in June 2016. The interview questions were parallel to the focus group questions used in the first study and covered the six dimensions of SRL skills. In October 2016, the research participant then completed an online questionnaire in which the questions were adapted from the questionnaire used in the research by Wolters et al. (2005). The questions covered three categories of SRL skills; strategies for the regulation of academic cognition, strategies for the regulation of academic motivation and strategies for the regulation of academic behaviour.

The result of this study is presented from a qualitative approach. A semi-structured focus group interview was conducted with two groups. The first group was made up of six participants while the second group was made up of three participants. The result section presented a discussion of the participants using synonyms to represent the students’ identity. The first case study comprises 8 male and 1 female.

In the second case study, the research participant, Anne was a 3rd year female undergraduate student completing a Bachelor of Arts in Education Studies. She took part in an interview during the week of her final examinations of her degree programme. She completed the online questionnaire after she had graduated from her undergraduate course by reflecting on her experience of studying a Bachelor of Arts in Education Studies in the UK.

The participants presented was from a small group of a larger study published previously. The result was published in graph as percentage and based on the number of selected students from the larger study. If these approach is applied on a larger scale study with more population sample, these could replicate the same results in a generalizable manner.

Anne shared that she had used three types of rehearsal strategies to aid her in her learning. Firstly, she went over all her course readings and articles but only looked at the main points in her lecture notes. Secondly, she memorized some keywords to help her remember important concepts and thirdly, she made a general list of key points she wanted to remember. In terms of elaboration strategies, Anne emphasized that she had gathered information from different journal articles, books and notes from discussions in class. She related these ideas and made connections to her previous knowledge.

She also applied new ideas learnt to any coursework she was working on as well as group discussion in lectures and informal discussions with peers. In relation to organization strategies (Braun and Clarke 2012), Anne seldom used charts, diagrams or timetables to organize her learning materials or way of learning. Instead, she preferred to go over the main points from lectures using her notes on key concepts and main ideas. She also highlighted important ideas in main readings and outlined any important points which then helped her to organize her thoughts and reflections. Anne shared that for metacognitive self-regulation, she often came up with her own questions which was used to help her to focus on reading journal articles or texts in the reading lists. She often re-read articles and texts when she could not grasped the content, main concepts or ideas. She also found it helpful to skim through materials before reading them, highlighted difficult concepts and addressed them later by clarifying it with her lecturers.

Anne used the strategy of mastery self-talk (Wolters et al. 2005) by focusing on her studies and sacrificed what was not necessary. She persuaded herself to keep on revising and improving her grades especially from her 2nd year for all her modules including her optional module, French. It was interesting to note that Anne also used strategies for relevance enhancement where she tried to connect to the materials from her modules, which seemed more useful and sought help from her lecturers, personal tutor and peers when she had difficulty understanding certain concepts. She also made the effort to relate what she learnt to her personal interests. Anne commented on her performance and relative ability of self-task where she felt she did better than some of her classmates and worked equally hard. She also had an awareness of wanting to do better as well as her peers and had worked even harder in her final year. In relation to performance and extrinsic self-talk, Anne always reminded herself that getting good grades was of great importance. With reference to the strategies of situational interest enhancement, Anne shared that she did not use learning or completing assignments as a game. She never saw doing revision, assignments and examinations as fun. However, she shared about self-consequence and how she had promised herself to achieved a goal and then later rewarded herself when she achieved it. She felt this strategy had helped her to achieve her goals and emphasized that goal setting played a huge role in relation to the strategies of self-consequence.

Anne explained that she had taken steps related to effort regulation. For example, she always worked hard in class even she did not enjoy doing certain tasks. She never gave up when she found some tasks daunting and seeked help to overcome these challenges. She also found that she needed to also do more individual work and developed her own learning strategies.

On the issue of perceived cost of help-seeking, Anne shared that she never felt that her peers looked down upon her for seeking help. She was not shy of asking for help and felt it did not matter as it solved questions which were lingering in her mind. Anne believes it was important for her to seek help from an external source such as lecturers and her personal tutor as well as seeking help from an internal source, such as other students. Additionally, she commented that the lecturers always tried to answer her questions as clearly as possible and this helped her to master new concepts.

This section addresses the six SRL dimensions used to measure the self-regulated learning abilities of the cohort of student in this study.