The role of scaffold interactivity in supporting self-regulated learning in a community college online composition course

This study addressed some of the challenges of supporting self-regulated learning in community college online English composition. This course used a flexible learning design, providing a choice of procedural scaffolds to support self-regulation of learning tasks by students. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between the use of two procedural scaffolds, a custom-designed, interactive checklists tool and a non-interactive calendar tool, and the core assignment submission and metacognition of online English composition students. Measures included clickstream data for procedural scaffold usage, a count of core assignment submissions, and Metacognitive Awareness Inventory scores. Results indicated that use of the custom-designed interactive checklists tool better supported submission of core assignments by students than the non-interactive calendar tool. While metacognition awareness scores increased across the study, no significant association with procedural scaffold use was found. Implications for future practice support the continued and extended use of interactive procedural scaffolds to support online students through task completion for complex processes such as academic writing.