Theories of Self-Regulated Learning and Academic Achievement: An Overview and Analysis

Theory and research on self-regulated academic learning emerged in the mid1980s to address the question of how students become masters of their own learning processes. Neither a mental ability nor an academic performance skill, self-regulation refers instead to the self-directive process through which learners transform their mental abilities into task-related academic skills. This approach views learning as an activity that students do for themselves in a proactive way, rather than as a covert event that happens to them reactively as a result of teaching experiences. Self-regulated learning (SRL) theory and research are not limited to asocial forms of education, such as discovery learning,…