Teacher beliefs, knowledge, and practice of self-regulated learning

This study examined teacher beliefs, knowledge, and classroom practice of self-regulated learning for ten elementary and middle school teachers. Using Zimmerman's SRL model to frame our method and results, we administered questionnaires, observed classrooms and conducted interviews with these teachers. Teachers had positive beliefs about the role of SRL in their classroom but had some reservations about students' ability to self-regulate at these grade levels. As revealed in interviews, teachers demonstrated gaps in knowledge in particular around goal setting for a task and evaluation after a learning event. Teachers most frequently encouraged student SRL during the monitoring phase of learning events in their classrooms. They were also able to explain most richly how to encourage student practice of metacognition in this phase. Nonetheless, just as for their own knowledge and personal practice of metacognition and SRL, gaps in teacher classroom practice emerged in the planning and evaluation stages of learning events. Cases were used to examine the alignment between teachers' beliefs or knowledge and their classroom practice. Often the three constructs were not well aligned. Disconfirming cases were interpreted in light of other theoretical models. Our results suggest the need for continued professional development in SRL strategies and their application to practice.