Panadero, E., Tapia, J.A. and Huertas, J.A. (2012). Rubrics and self-assessment scripts effects on self-regulation, learning and self-efficacy in secondary education. Learning and individual differences.
On-line self-regulation index.
Students were asked to express their thoughts and feelings aloud while analyzing the landscape. Thinking-aloud protocols are considered a good representation of the self-regulatory actions and metacognitive processes of students during an activity. They were recorded and later analyzed using the content of each complete proposition as the unit of analysis. Proposition content was classified into one of three categories:
- Descriptive propositions: those in which the content refers to what the participant was observing while analyzing the landscape;
- Self-regulatory propositions: those which content referred to questions asked while receiving instructions, or included messages for controlling disturbing emotions, planning, help-seeking, or revision, and questions of clarification during feedback;
- Negative emotional self-regulation propositions were computed on negative (e.g. “I am so nervous I cannot perform this task”).
Two researchers classified all the propositions independently according to these categories. Inter-rater agreementwas 94%. Finally, to normalize scores, the number of self-regulatory propositions of each student was divided by the sum of self-regulatory propositions plus descriptive propositions. Last, the on-line SRI was calculated for each of the three landscapes to evaluate the occasion/practice effect.
Rubrics
Rubrics have proved to have some positive effects in self-assessment and learning when supported by structured interventions.
Rubrics facilitate students’ self-regulation and learning, and how their effectiveness can be enhanced. Studies on the effects of rubrics on learning, performance and self-efficacy have obtained mixed results.
Rubrics are self-assessment tools with three characteristics:
- a list of criteria for assessing the important goals of the task,
- a scale for grading the different levels of achievement
- a description for each qualitative level.
Students can evaluate their work against the criteria or “standards” in the rubric, and then self-grade their work accordingly. Although rubrics are designed to analyze the final product of an activity, it is recommended that they are given to students before they start a task in order to help them establish appropriate goals.
Scripts
Self-assessment tool, are specific questions structured in steps to follow the expert model of approaching a task from beginning to end. They are designed to analyze the process being followed throughout a task, although they can also be used to analyze the final outcome. However, these effects have not always been found, a fact that seems to depend on the quality of the script structure and the length of intervention.
Depending on the characteristics and conditions of their application, scripts have plenty of positive features. Their use enhances self-regulation through activating adequate learning strategies, promoting more accurate self-assessment, and a deeper understanding of the content, and thus a higher level of learning
Dignath, C., Buettner, G., Langfeldt, H-P. (2008). How can primary school students learn self-regulated learning strategies most effectively? A meta-analysis on self-regulation training programmes. Educational Research Review, 3, pp. 101-129.
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Different types of strategies of self-regulated learning
All authors have a common perception of self-regulated learning, generally speaking, as a cycle in which self-assessment and self-evaluation of the learning process influence the following learning processes, they stress different aspects of this process and the constituent components, e.g., by giving a more motivation-oriented versus a metacognitively weighted definition
Training programmes should also create learning environments that are conducive to self-regulated learning, so that students are provided with opportunities to apply and practice the newly acquired strategies.
Boekaerts ’model illustrates the relationship between these three categories of strategies: the first level consists of cognitive strategies, which refer directly to information processing. The second level relates to the use of metacognitive strategies aiming at the regulation of the learning process.
Cognitive strategies: Cognitive strategies refer directly to the treatment of the learned information and are therefore specific for the different domains.
Metacognitive strategies: can therefore control, monitor and regulate learning and cognitive activities in general. Thus, metacognition enables reflection about one’s own learning process on the one hand, and use and regulation of strategic activities on the other hand.
Motivational strategies: The above-described cognitive and metacognitive strategies suggest characteristics about effective and self-regulated learning behavior. However, whether these strategies will be applied also depends on the motivational conditions. These play a significant role as they influence the initiation and maintenance of learning behavior. The impact of motivation and volition on learning behavior could be shown in several studies
What makes intervention programs most effective?
Research on instruction of self-regulated learning has revealed the gain of implementing these training programs directly in classrooms. The results indicated that interventions were most effective when being situated in a context, and fostering a high amount of student activity and metacognitive awareness.
Summarizing the most effective characteristics of interventions yields that a training program:
- should be based on social-cognitive theories,
- should train cognitive (especially elaboration and problem solving strategies),metacognitive (especially planning strategies), and motivational strategies (especially feedback),
- should provide knowledge about strategy use and about its benefit.
Researchers and trainers should therefore assure the instruction of group work strategies before and during using this method. Also teachers should not conduct training programs, or that training should only take place in lower grades of primary schools.
Role of group working.
Most effective training programs provided students with feedback about their group learning. Positive effects of group working can only surface if students know rules about how to behave when working in groups, it would not be enough to let students sit around a table in small groups without providing them with any systematic instruction.
But, effect sizes were significantly higher for interventions that did not train students by means of group work than for those that did, while in the mean time, there is now enough research showing that it can make learning more efficient and improve learning motivation.
(Unfortunately authors found only very little information about the implementation of group working in the learning setting. They also did not find any information about the experiences
of students with group work, and whether they received any instruction about working in groups.)
However authors concluded that reason for the negative effect of group work on training effects at primary school level might be that students were not used to working in groups and did not receive enough instruction about cooperative learning.
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