Abstract
This exploratory case study examined in depth the studying activities of eight students across two studying episodes, and compared traces of actual studying activities to self-reports of self-regulated learning. Students participated in a 2-hour activity using our gStudy software to complete a course assignment. We used log file data to construct profiles of self-regulated learning activity in four ways: (a) frequency of studying events, (b) patterns of studying activity, (c) timing and sequencing of events, and (d) content analyses of students’ notes and summaries. Findings indicate that students’ self-reports may not calibrate to actual studying activity. Analyses of log file traces of studying activities provide important information for defining strategies and sequences of fine-grained studying actions. We contrast these analytic methods and illustrate how trace-based profiles of students’ self-regulated studying inform models of metacognitive monitoring, evaluation, and self-regulated adaptation.
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Acknowledgement
Support for this research was provided by grants to Allyson F. Hadwin from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (410-2001-1263); and to Philip H. Winne from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (410-2002-1787 and 512-2003-1012), the Canada Research Chair Program and Simon Fraser University.
We thank the participants from Educational Psychology 220 who graciously shared their log file data. We also thank Christopher Murphy and Nasir Rather who programmed the LogAnalyzer and rapidly responded to our sometimes hourly requests for additions or modifications.
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Hadwin, A.F., Nesbit, J.C., Jamieson-Noel, D. et al. Examining trace data to explore self-regulated learning. Metacognition Learning 2, 107–124 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-007-9016-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-007-9016-7