Self-regulated learning about university teaching: an exploratory study

Abstract

While research on self-regulated learning has been proliferating over the past decade, also within higher education settings, only very few studies apply the notion of self-regulated learning to teaching. We offer this exploratory study as a contribution to our understanding of the role of self-regulated learning in university instructors’ growth as teachers. Thirty-one academic science staff participated in semi-structured interviews designed to explore whether they engage in self-regulatory processes when learning about teaching. Interview questions were based on two theories: Zimmerman's self-regulated learning cycle and Kreber and Cranton's scholarship of teaching model. Cluster analyses revealed different patterns of responses for various subgroups of staff. For the two main groups, Chi-square analyses identified the specific variables on which differences between groups were observed. Participation in certain educational development activities as well as discipline affiliation was shown to be associated with self-regulated learning processes. We make concrete suggestions for how future research on self-regulated learning about teaching can build on these findings and conclude the article with some recommendations for the practice of educational development.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Chris Prokop for her advice and assistance with the analyses of the data. The authors acknowledge the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.