Full text of DOI:10.1007/BF02504930

Instructional Principles for Self-Regulation
Kathryn Ley
Dawn B. Young
An individual’s ability to self-regulate con-
The purpose of this article is to suggest
principles for embedding support in
tributes to motivation and learning. Self-regula-
tion (SR) may be broadly defined as the effort
put forth by students to deepen, monitor,
manipulate, and improve their own learning
(Corno & Mandinach, 1983). SR includes factors
such as resource management, goal setting, suc-
cess expectations, and deep cognitive involve-
ment (Trawick & Corno, 1995). During the SR
process, expert learners “identify what the cur-
rent task requires in terms of cognitive, motiva-
tional, and environmental strategies and
determine if their personal resources are ade-
quate to effectively accomplish the task” (Ertmer
& Newby, 1996, p. 18). Self-awareness, self-mon-
itoring, and self-evaluation are critical to effec-
tive SR and performance (McCombs, 1989).
Some have suggested that SR is synonymous
instruction to facilitate self-regulation (SR) in
less expert learners. The principles are based
on an analysis of the growing body of research
on the distinctive self-regulation differences
between higher and lower achieving learners.
The analysis revealed four instructional
principles that designers should consider to
provide support for self-regulation. Each
principle is supported by research and
instructional examples are included.
with metacognition (Brown, Hedberg,
&
Harper, 1994) or metacognitive adjustments by
learners in response to feedback on errors
(Brown, Bransford, Ferrra, & Campione, 1983).
According to Osman and Hannafin (1992),
research has “provided concrete evidence that
[self] regulation strategies may be embedded
within instruction” (p. 88). McCombs (1989) has
indicated that instructional interventions can
help enhance or supplant existing capacities and
skills for learners who have difficulties with SR.
Several recent approaches to embedding SR
into instruction offer systematic principles and
guidelines to facilitate their design. Design
guidelines have been derived from a synthesis of
research on SR components such as monitoring,
self-efficacy, and metacognition (Shin, 1998).
These guidelines suggest embedding SR train-
ing into instruction by modeling SR, using
cognitive apprenticeships, and providing attri-
butional feedback to identify appropriate strate-
gies, among other strategies. More recently,
ETR&D, Vol. 49, No. 2, 2001, pp. 93–103 ISSN 1042–1629
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Corno and Randi (1999) presented a theory for
classroom instruction to “foster self-regulated
learning among students and teachers” (p. 294).
support SR regardless of content, media, or a
specific population. They can be systematically
employed in diverse contexts such as print-
based or instructor-led instruction as well as
synchronous or asynchronous Web-based
instruction.
Several SR interventions classified as exem-
plary by Schunk and Zimmerman (1998) have
been tailored to specific content, students, or
media. SR interventions have been suggested for
writing (Graham, Harris, & Troia, 1998), reading
comprehension (Pressley, El-Dinary, Wharton-
McDonald, & Brown, 1998), and mathematics
(Schunk, 1998). Others have described SR inter-
ventions incorporated into college learning-to-
learn courses (Hofer, Yu, & Pintrich, 1998;
Weinstein, 1994) or in computer-mediated
instruction (Winne & Stockley, 1998). Some
approaches have been directed toward specific
populations such as children (Biemiller, Shany,
Inglis, & Michenbaum, 1998; Corno, 1995), ado-
lescents (Belfiore & Hornyak, 1998), and learn-
ing disabled students (Butler, 1998).
The principles are based on research litera-
ture that supports SR and identifies SR compo-
nents that may be deficient in some learners.
Each principle meets two criteria: (a) It is sup-
ported by research results suggesting a positive
influence on learning, and (b) it addresses a
need—an SR gap associated with achievement.
The principles are designed to address the com-
ponents that research evidence suggests exert
the greatest influence on achievement.
The four main principles described below are
derived from research on six SR components—
(a) goal-setting, (b) preparing a place to study,
(c) organizing materials, (d) monitoring learn-
ing, (e) evaluating progress and effectiveness,
and (f) reviewing tests. These four principles are
an attempt to embody both effective and flexible
guidance for embedding SR into instruction:
INSTRUCTIONAL PRINCIPLES FOR SR
The purpose of the current article is to suggest
principles for embedding SR support in instruc-
tion to facilitate regulation in less expert learn-
ers. Instruction that includes these principles
may ameliorate learner SR deficiencies in varied
instructional contexts. The principles suggested
in this article can be embedded in instruction to
1. Guide learners to prepare and structure an
effective learning environment.
2. Organize instruction and activities to facili-
tate cognitive and metacognitive processes.
3. Use instructional goals and feedback to pres-
ent student monitoring opportunities.
Table 1
Instructional Principles to Support Self-regulation
Definition
Regulating activity
Instructional support example
Preparing and
structuring learning
environment
Select or arrange the physical setting
to make learning easier
Advise students how to arrange
physical environments and cope with
distractions
Organizing and
transforming
instructional materials
Overt or covert rearrangement of
instructional materials to improve
learning
Give students partial outline that they
complete
Keeping records &
monitoring progress
Record events or results
Instruct student to keep a progress
report recording completed activities
Evaluating
performance against
a standard
Evaluate completed work quality;
reread tests to prepare for class or
further testing
Review exam responses with student(s)
item by item, why response correct or
how to correct response

INSTRUCTIONAL PRINCIPLES FOR SELF-REGULATION
95
4. Provide learners with continuous evaluation
information and occasions to self evaluate.
analysis with 14 SR activities indicated that
arranging the physical setting was the second
strongest predictor for scoring above or below
the minimum score for college admission (Ley &
Young, 1998). Furthermore, environmental
structuring was the strongest difference
between college students who used an instruc-
tional self-monitoring protocol and those who
did not (Lan, 1996). In Lan’s study, learners who
recorded their study behaviors with a protocol
reported significantly more environmental
structuring and earned significantly higher
exam scores than either those who recorded
instructor behaviors or those who did no record-
ing.
Principle 1: Guide learners to prepare and
structure an effective learning environment
Instruction should encourage and guide learn-
ers to prepare appropriate learning environ-
ments. Successful learners make “efforts to
determine or arrange where a task is to be com-
pleted” (Trawick & Corno, 1995, p. 62). Structur-
ing the environment relates to a learner’s ability
to cope effectively with disturbances, a crucial
part of SR (Corno, 1994). A confirmatory factor
analysis on data from 100 college students vali-
dated managing distractions as a first-order factor
contributing to SR (Orange, 1999).
Effective instruction requires creating and
maintaining motivating and engaging environ-
ments (Belfiore & Hornyak, 1998). Instruction to
foster SR should embed suggestions for estab-
lishing a study area that is quiet, comfortable,
and without distractions. Environmental struc-
turing methods bring the learner’s attention to
environmental preparation and, to be more
effective, require learner participation (Garner,
1990). The approaches vary in labor intensive-
ness for the learner.
Environmental structuring enables learners
to eliminate or decrease distractions and to
attend to learning, an essential first instructional
event (Gagné, 1985). Before learners can pay
attention they must have an environment that
allows, if not encourages, them to focus atten-
tion on the learning task at hand. Expert learners
have knowledge about the “optimal study con-
ditions for meeting the demands of the task”
(Ertmer & Newby, 1996, p. 8); expert learners
ask themselves, “When and where do I study
best? How supportive is the learning environ-
ment?” (p. 20). Self-regulated learners arrange
elements in an instructional environment so that
learning goals successfully compete with other
goals for attention and other cognitive resources
(Corno, 1994).
One of the less labor-intensive techniques
requires learners to complete an environmental
structuring checklist that establishes the charac-
teristics of an effective distraction-free study
environment. Detailed strategies for teacher-led,
synchronous environments (see Corno, 1994, p.
246) may be adaptable to asynchronous Web-
based instruction. For example, Web learners
might identify their potential distractions from a
list and choose from among activities that elimi-
nate the distraction. The instruction would offer
effective methods for eliminating or decreasing
the distraction impact.
Although there have been few investigations
of environmental structuring comparing its rela-
tive influence to other SR components, the
strength of the evidence in these studies may
warrant consideration. Evidence from studies in
which learners have recalled their usual study
practices suggests that academically stronger
learners use environmental structuring more
often than do academically weaker learners
(Lan, 1998; Ley & Young, 1998). When environ-
mental structuring has been analyzed simulta-
neously with other components to determine its
relative contribution to SR, evidence supports
the relative importance of environmental struc-
turing in discriminating between higher and
lower achievement. A discriminant function
Some activities to encourage environmental
structuring require minimal but continuous
learner effort. Recording study time on a form
may increase the learner’s attention to environ-
mental structuring. Instruction could require
learners to record time spent studying in an
appropriately structured learning environment
and submit the record (see Belfiore & Hornyak,
1998, p. 193). Encouraging learners to sustain a
quiet, comfortable, and distraction-free study
environment can require combining activities to

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ETR&D, Vol. 49, No. 2
establish an appropriately structured environ-
ment with recording the time spent studying in
it.
paper’” (Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons, 1986, p.
618). Learner statements may best exemplify this
self-regulated learning component that Corno
(1986) referred to as encoding control: “Write it
one way then another [and] write the parts of a
problem and look at it” (p. 341).
Other techniques could depend on the
learner’s developing an environmental structur-
ing plan. Instruction might present learners with
environmental structuring advice such as how
to eliminate specific distractions. The advice
could be integrated into text procedures or
instructions for completing the initial assign-
ment. Learners might first select or list the
threats to structuring a supportive learning
environment and then choose environmental
structuring activities to develop a plan. To suc-
cessfully complete a plan, some learners might
require a catalog of distraction-coping strategies.
More labor-intensive plans might require learn-
ers to analyze how and when to effectively con-
trol distractions (Corno, 1994). This strategy
encourages learners to reflect on how prepared
they are to study and might culminate in a writ-
ten environmental structuring plan. However,
learners who typically use ineffective strategies
may be unable to suggest effective strategies
without additional support.
Organizational strategies, such as outlining
content or relating concepts within content, are
among the cognitive learning strategies that indi-
viduals use to self-regulate and that usually result
in a deeper understanding of the material (Hofer et
al., 1998, p. 67). Strategies that organize content,
such as concept mapping, schematizing, and struc-
tured overviewing have boosted achievement in
several studies investigating the relationship
between instruction and structural knowledge
(Jonassen & Grabowski, 1993). Furthermore “com-
prehension has significantly improved with the
use of visual organizers such as concept maps”
(Simpson & Randall, 2000, p. 55).
Organizing was strongly associated with
achievement in three studies that investigated
the relative strength of SR strategies (Ley &
Young, 1998; Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons,
1986; 1988). Research has indicated that organiz-
ing and transforming strategies are used by mid-
dle school students more than most other SR
strategies (Zimmerman & Marinez-Pons, 1988)
and are more strongly related to achievement
than most SR strategies (Ley & Young, 1998;
Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons, 1986). In addi-
tion, organizing and transforming strategies are
strong contributors in explaining the difference
between advanced track and lower track high
school students (Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons,
1986) and in predicting regular admission and
underprepared college student group classifica-
tion (Ley & Young, 1998).
To provide more support, instruction can
prompt learners and offer them environmental
structuring options. Prompting learners whose
initial performance indicates that they may have
difficulty structuring their environment may
help those who have higher SR needs. For exam-
ple, in a distance course, learners who do poorly
on the first assignment could be asked to follow
a series of procedures for structuring their learn-
ing environment. Providing a list of strategies
will assist less self-regulating learners to plan
effective strategies since they often use familiar
but ineffective strategies (Garner, 1990).
These studies credibly reinforce the notion
that effort expended organizing learning materi-
als influences achievement. All three studies col-
lected data on the same 14 SR strategies. In the
two studies with distinct achievement groups
(Ley & Young, 1998; Zimmerman & Martinez-
Pons, 1986), the academically stronger groups
chose more organizing strategies and used them
more frequently than did the academically
weaker groups; both studies collected data and
classified self-regulating behaviors with the
same interview protocol and analysis technique,
Principle 2: Organize instruction and
activities to facilitate cognitive and
metacognitive processes
Organizing is an important study activity (Di
Vesta & Moreno, 1993) and a key component of
SR (Hagen & Weinstein, 1995; Zimmerman &
Paulsen, 1995). Organizing materials may be
broadly defined as transforming and “rearrang-
ing instructional materials to improve learning,
for example, ‘I make an outline before I write my

INSTRUCTIONAL PRINCIPLES FOR SELF-REGULATION
97
lending further support to the relative impor-
tance of organizing strategies when compared to
alternatives.
Principle 3: Use instructional goals and
feedback to present the learner with
monitoring opportunities
Different arrangements of the learning mate-
rials within the instruction may facilitate learn-
ing and the use of cognitive and metacognitive
strategies. Metacognitive strategies may be
defined as the “the ability to think about one’s
own thinking and to actively select appropriate
strategies for various learning situations”
(Zimmerman & Risemberg, 1994, p. 243). Proven
organizing strategies suggested for instructors
include advance or graphic organizers, concept
mapping, and previews (Driscoll, 2000; Nist &
Holschuh, 2000). Graphic organizers, a learner-
generated version of advance organizers, are
hierarchically arranged tree diagrams of a text’s
key terms and concepts (Driscoll). Previews are
detailed narratives about a text that should be
read in advance to activate knowledge and aid
organization and reading comprehension (Nist
& Holschuh). Concept maps are visual represen-
tations of information (Hadwin & Winne, 1996)
that could introduce or summarize concept rela-
tionships within a module or chapter (see
Driscoll). Some instructional software facilitates
the learner by “structuring of a task . . . organi-
zation of information, or manipulation of data”
without an instructor (Brown et al., 1994, p. 11).
“Monitoring is an important component of self-
regulated learning” (Zimmerman & Paulsen,
1995, p. 13). Monitoring is the cognitive process
that assesses the state of progress relative to
goals and generates feedback that can guide fur-
ther action; it is pivotal in self-regulated learning
(Butler & Winne, 1995). A confirmatory factor
analysis on an SR inventory completed by col-
lege students validated monitoring as a first-
order factor (Orange, 1999).
Monitoring depends on two other critical
self-regulating components: feedback and goal
setting (Butler & Winne, 1995). Feedback and
goal setting enable monitoring; the two compo-
nents interact to promote SR. Self-regulators use
external and internal feedback to monitor how
well they are meeting learning goals, how effec-
tive their learning strategies and tactics are, and
the quality of their learning outcomes (Butler &
Winne). A meta-analysis of 131 feedback studies
led researchers to conclude that goal setting aug-
mented the effects of feedback interventions
(Kluger & DeNisi, 1996). Conversely, feedback
may also influence how learners set sequential
goals (Butler & Winne). To monitor and control
learning-goal attainment, learners must under-
stand tasks and desired outcomes (Weinstein,
1994). They self-regulate by systematically acti-
vating and sustaining behaviors and cognitions
to attain learning goals (Schunk, 1990).
Each of these techniques may be embedded
in instruction to help learners self-regulate.
Although learner-generated versions of graphic
organizers have been more effective than
instructionally provided ones, some students
may not be able to create them if they lack time,
knowledge, or willingness to do so. Examples of
embedded strategies that support SR include
headings, subheadings, chapter summaries, les-
son overviews, and explicit orienting activities
(Osman & Hannafin, 1992). An embedded strat-
egy may include graphic organizers or concept
mapping. Content previews may be combined
with an organizing activity that engages learn-
ers and increases deeper processing (Nist &
Holschuh, 2000). Learners may complete partial
concept maps or fill in missing concepts on an
outline. The content outlines, class outlines, or
advance organizers structure the learning
sequence and identify important concepts for
learners.
Monitoring instructional interventions with
and without explicit goal setting have improved
performance. Girls who recorded their progress
while learning to throw darts enhanced effects
of both process and product goal setting and
achievement when compared to girls who did
not monitor (Zimmerman & Kitsantas, 1997).
When prompted during instruction, they pro-
vided their own feedback by attending to and
recording their progress. Learners who recorded
their learning activities on a self-monitoring pro-
tocol scored higher on examinations than did
learners who recorded teacher activities or who
did no recording (Lan, 1996). The self-monitor-
ing learners provided their own additional feed-
back over the other groups, which may have led
to their improved learning outcomes. Successful

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learners remember to monitor their progress
and know how to correct their errors. First year
veterinary students who reported using self-reg-
ulating behaviors more often than other stu-
dents were able to identify goals, implement
alternative strategies, and become aware of how
learning occurred while completing case studies
(Ertmer, Newby, & MacDougall, 1996). Learners
who have received monitoring instruction or
guidance or strategy advice about effective
instructional choices learned more than when
they did not (Kinzie, 1990).
Instruction could prompt learners to observe
and record whether or not they have completed
interim activities required to produce a more
complex assignment. Instruction could also
include a form for monitoring learning activities
and require the learner to record time spent on
learning activities such as taking notes, reading
the text, attending a lecture, working problems,
and so forth (see Lan, 1998). In the process of
completing an assignment, a learner might be
required to track progress completing prepara-
tory assignments that culminate in a product
incorporating elements of the preparatory
assignments. Instruction might also require
explicit interim process and product assignments
that are the occasion for feedback and that guide
student efforts to attain desired learning goals.
An instructional process may also provide
external (instructor or other instruction gener-
ated) frequent and systematic feedback. An
instructor or facilitator might acknowledge or
verify learner monitoring records or, in com-
puter-mediated instruction, send a notice to the
learner if an on-line monitoring form is not
maintained. Some Web-based instructional
shells such as WebCT™ provide feedback
through computer-generated exams and scoring
that do not require an instructor or facilitator to
provide feedback.
Monitoring has been associated with achieve-
ment. Younger students and poor learners use
very few monitoring strategies (Puntambekar,
1995). Extensive evidence indicates “that
prompting students to keep records affects their
learning, motivation, and self efficacy” (Zim-
merman, 1989, p. 333). Keeping records and
monitoring frequency was one of five signifi-
cantly discriminating self-regulating differences
between students who scored above and those
who scored below the minimum standardized
test score for college admission eligibility (Ley &
Young, 1998). Keeping records and monitoring
frequency was the second strongest predictor
for discriminating self-regulating differences
between eighth grade students from higher and
lower achievement tracks (Zimmerman
Martinez-Pons, 1986).
&
External feedback on interim, process, or par-
tial assignments may encourage monitoring. If
the learning outcome is a technical report,
instruction may require learners to submit and
receive feedback on whether or not they have
submitted notes for the report, then for a draft,
and, finally for the report. SR support could
incorporate feedback to learners on many, if not
most, of the component activities that culminate
in a more comprehensive, complex assignment.
When learners begin or are prompted to com-
pare their performance to a standard the process
becomes self-evaluation, a related but separate
SR process.
Monitoring may be the cornerstone of self-
regulated learning although “when learners do
not need to act on instructions or descriptions,
they are unlikely to monitor . . . rigorously”
(Garner, 1990, p. 519). Therefore instruction that
supports SR may prompt the learner to monitor.
Self-monitoring may take the form of students
(a) observing and recording whether or not they
have done something, or (b) observing and
recording behaviors so as to monitor if their per-
formance has met a set criteria (Belfiore &
Hornyak, 1998). In the latter case, specified cri-
teria become goals when learners embrace them
as attainable performance standards. Goals may
enhance feelings of competence and interest if
they can be attained in a short period of time and
framed as specific actions (Meece, 1994). Fur-
thermore, guiding learners to establish precise
and attainable goals can enhance metacognitive
monitoring (Winne & Stockley, 1998).
Principle 4: Provide learners with
continuous evaluation information and
occasions to self evaluate
Definitions of both monitoring and evaluation
often include
a comparison between the
learner’s own performance to a standard, but for

INSTRUCTIONAL PRINCIPLES FOR SELF-REGULATION
99
the purposes of this article, such comparisons
are used to distinguish evaluation from moni-
toring. Self-evaluation “involves the compara-
tive outcome between some component of
performance and the set standard” (Belfiore &
Hornyak, 1998, p. 190) or setting standards and
using them for self-judgment (Zimmerman,
1998, p. 78). Monitoring is limited to tracking
and recording one’s own performance without
comparing effort to outcomes. Setting evalua-
tion standards and goals is a noted characteristic
of self-regulated learners (Ertmer et al., 1996)
and “comparing one’s performance with stan-
dards informs one of goal progress” (Schunk,
1990, p. 73). The distinction between monitoring
and evaluation may not be clear in practice but
the distinction establishes a unique instructional
purpose for each principle.
(Lan, 1996), college students who did not score
at or above the minimum standardized test
score required for college admission (Ley &
Young, 1998) and their higher-achieving or scor-
ing counterparts. Evidence suggests that higher-
achieving students may use past performance to
evaluate learning and identify deficits more fre-
quently than do lower-achieving students.
Higher-achieving college students in two stud-
ies reviewed previous tests significantly more
than did lower-achieving college students (Lan;
Ley & Young). Reviewing tests to identify cor-
rect and incorrect responses may enable evalua-
tion. Self-regulated learners may compare past
learning outcomes to desirable ones, identify
their learning gaps, and renew efforts to repair
specific performance gaps.
Monitoring may stimulate self-evaluation.
College statistics students who recorded their
study behaviors subsequently reported review-
ing previous tests significantly more often than
did those who did no recording or who recorded
instructor behaviors (Lan, 1998). The instructor
did not explicitly advise or teach learners how or
what to study but only asked them to record
weekly their study behaviors. Following learn-
ing goals had a positive influence on the SR of
college men and women (Bouffard, Boisvert,
Vezeau, & LaRouche, 1995). On the other hand,
less self-regulating learners may be less able to
evaluate and to select strategies than more self-
regulating learners. Embedded appropriate
learning strategies, (selection, sequence, viewing
pace, and review of instructional events in com-
puter-based instruction) closed a significant per-
formance gap between self-identified lower
self-regulators and higher self-regulators when
both groups were allowed to control their strate-
gies (Young, 1996).
Evaluation judgments close an SR loop in
which students monitor the effectiveness of their
learning methods or strategies in reaching their
goals and react to this feedback (Zimmerman &
Kitsantas, 1997). Expert learners know how to
evaluate their learning strategies and modify
their learning strategies on a timely basis
(Weinstein, 1994). Self-regulated learners evalu-
ate their learning strategies to determine if the
strategies are effectively advancing them toward
their goals (Weinstein). They have an implicit if
not explicit performance standard, evaluate
their performance against the standard, identify
strategy problems, and know how to correct
strategies. Learners may not be able to accu-
rately monitor and detect failure if they do not
understand how to evaluate their learning (Gar-
ner, 1990). Some learners may need help with
self-evaluation before they can develop skills for
SR (McCombs, 1989).
Evaluating performance is a key SR compo-
nent. Comparing current performance to goal
performance to gauge progress was one of three
items that loaded as a self-evaluation factor in
the confirmatory factor analysis reported by
Orange (1999). Only study strategy use
exceeded self-evaluation in strength of its contri-
bution to SR among seven first-order factors.
Guiding students through tasks, delivering
corrective feedback that helps a learner see
where he has gone wrong, and providing hints
about how to correct the problem “can be very
helpful as students try to become self-regulated
learners” (Pintrich, 1995, p.11). Embedded eval-
uation strategies may provide students with
explicit feedback that relates effort to learning so
that students can determine how well their strat-
egy is working. Feedback may include observa-
Self-evaluation processes have significantly
differed between lower-achievement track high
school students (Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons,
1990), lower-scoring college statistics students
tions about
a learner’s effort and, when

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appropriate, improvement over time (Hagen &
Weinstein, 1995). Feedback should indicate
progress toward learning goals, that is, mastery
and what the learner should know or be able to
do; on the other hand, feedback on performance
goals, that is, scores, grades, or relative standing
may be counterproductive (Hagen & Weinst-
ein). Therefore feedback that includes scores
should reflect degree of mastery, not relative
standing in a group of learners. When feedback
encourages learners to compare their work to a
standard or a goal and reflect on the quality of
their performance compared to the standard or
the goal, the learners engage the SR process of
evaluating their learning outcomes.
assignment evaluation criteria as a quality con-
trol checklist during assignment preparation
and then receive their assignment evaluations
based on the same criteria. The process encour-
ages learners to compare their work to a set of
standards during and after completion: (a) pro-
vide the learner with a set of measurable criteria
for a product or process in a checklist format, (b)
instruct the learner how to use the criteria as a
quality control checklist when preparing the
activity or completing the product, and (c) pro-
vide the learner with feedback on the quality of
completed process or product using the same
criteria checklist (Ley, 1999). Learners can com-
pare their self-evaluations to an external evalua-
tion conducted by the instructor or
computer-mediated instruction and then deter-
mine their self-evaluation effectiveness.
SR “requires the development of both self-
monitoring and self-evaluation processes”
(McCombs, 1989, p. 72). Requiring “learners to
interact with others, describe their learning pro-
cesses, evaluate their performance, and provide
feedback to each other” encourages metacogni-
tive processes that accompany SR (Osman &
Hannafin, 1992, p. 96). On the other hand, any
instructional intervention incorporating peer
evaluations should operate with the caveat that
inaccurate or misleading peer evaluations are
nonpunitively corrected quickly for both the
evaluator and the evaluated.
DISCUSSION
Embedded SR support may be more important
for some learners than others. According to
Zimmerman (1989), “all learners try to self-regu-
late their academic learning and performance in
some way, but there are dramatic differences in
methods and self-beliefs among students” (p. 6).
Evidence suggests that some learners may be
less inclined or able to self-regulate than others
(Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons, 1990). Several
distinct activities and cognitive processes com-
prise SR but a select few apparently are associ-
Computer-based instruction that prompts
students to use learning processes encourages
SR (Winne & Stockley, 1998). Feedback may be
provided through a display that automatically
reports cumulative unit completion and mas-
tery. Progress reports could indicate cumulative
assignments with grades throughout instruc-
tion. Computer-based instruction that tests a
learner frequently and provides the learner with
explicit feedback on correct and incorrect
responses supports self-evaluation and compels
the learner to review the test items and
responses.
ated
with
achievement
levels.
Less
self-regulated learners may benefit from inter-
ventions that guide how, what, and where to
study, (McCombs, 1989) and depend less on
ineffective and inefficient learning approaches
they know and use (Garner, 1990). Embedded
SR support may be able to guide them through
effective preparation, organization, monitoring
and evaluation processes. Assuring that these
few components are structured into the learning
experience may help those who need it most.
Instruction may embed evaluation with test
reviews or individual assignments. Learners
may be required to follow frequent graded or
ungraded tests with a review of the test and cor-
rective feedback. Instruction could require
learners to suggest how they might improve a
test response or an assignment based on external
evaluation. Another technique especially adapt-
able to distance learning might have learners use
Lower-achieving learners do far better when
their instructional choices are limited by high
structure (Kulik & Kulik, 1991). But how much
structure is necessary? The answer depends on
the learner’s current SR skill. A complementary
relationship between external and internal “reg-

INSTRUCTIONAL PRINCIPLES FOR SELF-REGULATION
101
ulation mechanisms . . . may provide a powerful
balance among available alternatives” (Osman
& Hannafin, 1992, p. 89). Since better learners
probably employ strategies associated with SR
to compensate for cognitive deficiencies (Di
Vesta & Moreno, 1993), increased SR support
might compensate for weak SR. Instruction may
be embedded with information and activities to
compensate for SR weaknesses in less self-regu-
lated learners without adversely affecting more
self-regulated learners. Including SR has not
decreased achievement in more self-regulating
students but has closed the achievement gap
between more and less self-regulating students
(Young, 1996).
lower-achieving learners—(a) guide learners to
prepare and structure an effective learning envi-
ronment, (b) organize instruction and activities
to facilitate cognitive and metacognitive pro-
cesses, (c) use instructional goals and feedback
to present student monitoring opportunities,
and (d) provide learners with continuous evalu-
ation information and occasions to self-evaluate.
These four principles should guide embedding
SR support in a wide variety of instructional
media and contexts. The principles guide but do
not guarantee better learning. The true test of
design principles is their usefulness, effective-
ness, and efficiency. This test should be the next
step in determining their value to instructional
designers and learners.
Providing support for SR may have some
advantages over teaching study skills or trying
to teach the more specific SR strategies. First, the
designer does not have to develop instruction to
teach strategies, a time-consuming process that
may not be needed by all learners and may have
limited transferability (Hadwin & Winne, 1996).
Second, instructional designers and instructors
may be able to create instruction that supports
more lower-achieving and often less self-regu-
lating learners regardless of the media, content,
or population for whom it is intended. Specific
media or instructional format or population
have been suggested as options, not require-
ments.
Kathryn Ley is with the Department of Instructional
Technology, University of Houston Clear Lake. She
can be reached at ley@cl.uh.edu.
Dawn B. Young is with the Department of
Behavioral Sciences at Bossier Parish Community
College.
The authors thank Peggy Ertmer, Gayle
Davidson-Shivers, and Jim Klein for greatly
improving the manuscript with their insightful
recommendations.
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