Research Blog #10: Final Abstract and Bibliography

Abstract:

This essay analyzes the traditional college student’s lack of self-regulation. It compares traditional students (ages 18 to 22) with non-traditional students (ages 23 and older), in the means of their self-regulation and way of thinking through case studies, proving that younger college students lack the elaboration and self-regulation as displayed in the 9 subscales of the MSLQ. Tests are explained to show how self-regulation can be manipulated and have positive effects on an individual, especially in their writing - as displayed in the Feltham and Sharen study, with the average students’ writing grade increasing by 13 points. Alternatives and new means of learning, primarily in writing, for those who lack the concept of self-regulation are explained as well. Curriculums focused on the knowledge of text organization to guide, plan, and self-evaluate, as well as new writing mediums - such as online blogs (i.e. Blogger) - prove to be a greater influence and motivator for traditional college students in writing. It is proven that through interaction and involvement of students in their writing, their interest and motivation are strengthened, therefore bettering their work.

Bibliography:

Baggetun, Rune, and Barbara Wasson. "Self-Regulated Learning And Open Writing." European Journal Of Education41.3-4 (2006): 453-472. ERIC. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.

"College Drinking." National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Dec. 2015. PDF. 23 Apr. 2016.

Feltham, Mark, and Colleen Sharen. "What Do You Mean I Wrote A C Paper?" Writing, Revision, And Self- Regulation." Collected Essays On Learning And Teaching 8.(2015): 111-138. ERIC. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.

Jacobson, Rebecca R., and Sandra M. Harris. "Does the type of campus influence self-regulated learning as measured by the Motivated Strategies For Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ)?" Education 128.3 (2008): 412+. Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.

Kitchakarn, Orachorn. "Using Blogs To Improve Students' Summary Writing Abilities." Turkish Online Journal Of Distance Education 13.4 (2012): 209-219. ERIC. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.

MacArthur, Charles A., Zoi A. Philippakos, and Melissa Ianetta. "Self-Regulated Strategy Instruction In College Developmental Writing." Journal Of Educational Psychology 107.3 (2015): 855-867. ERIC. Web. 5 Apr. 2016.

Mih, Codruta, and Viorel Mih. "Components Of Self-Regulated Learning; Implications For School Performance." Acta Didactica Napocensia 3.1 (2010): 39-48. ERIC. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

Miller, Dionne. "Two-Year Community: Learning How Students Learn: An Exploration of Self-Regulation Strategies in a Two-Year College General Chemistry Class." Journal of College Science Teaching J. Coll. Sci. Teach. 044.03 (2015): 11-16. Web.

Mischel, Walter. The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-control. Little, Brown. Print.

Pintrich, Paul R. "A Conceptual Framework for Assessing Motivation and Self-Regulated Learning in College Students." Educational Psychology Review 16.4 (2004): 385-407. Web.

Wanjohi, Racheal N., Robert B. Mwebi, and Naftal M. Nyang'ara. "Self-Regulation Of Facebook Usage And Academic Performance Of Students In Kenyan Universities." Journal Of Education And Practice 6.14 (2015): 109-113.ERIC. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.

Literature Review Blog #5

Visual: 

Citation: Mih, Codruta, and Viorel Mih. "Components Of Self-Regulated Learning; Implications For School Performance." Acta Didactica Napocensia 3.1 (2010): 39-48. ERIC. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

Summary: This article goes in to detail on self-regulated learning. It talks about how many psychological and other factors come into play with self-regulated learning; like, learning goals, personal self-efficacy, metacognition and testanxiety

Authors: Both authors are very qualified for this study because they are both very experienced researchers with background in psychological fields. They have many other studies which are very renowned and useful.

Key terms: 
1. metacognition - awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes.

2. self-regulated learning -  refers to learning that results from students' self-generated thoughts and behaviors that are oriented systematically toward the attainment of their goals

Quotes:
1. "Studies show that students with high self-efficacy benefit from high educational achievements. Consequently, they are more capable of self-regulation , prefer challenging tasks, invest more effort in solving tasks, persist more in solving difficult tasks, set higher goals, show low test-anxiety, and apply more effective learning strategies." pg 42
2. "When faced with challenging tasks they manifest diverse reactions: they draw back because of risk of failure, show negative affective reactions, attribute failure to lack of academic ability and demonstrate decreased interest for the task." pg 41
3. "More specifically, the study set off to identify the variables involved in the process of school learning, describing the relations between these, as well as the way each construct develops as school age advances." pg 39


Value: This article will help me explore my research question because I can use it as a comparison or contrast to many of my other sources using self-regulated learning. This article also brings a psychological aspect into my research which I could explore further.

Research Blog #9: Argument and Counter-Argument

My argument is that having more self-regulation will allow college students to better succeed academically, especially when it comes to writing. The other side of this argument is that self-regulation does not have such a big impact on students, which is supported by the Miller article in my sources. In this article, the results of their study found that self-regulation has no direct correlation to prediction accuracy in students. I find this counter-argument to be not so strong since it focuses on a different aspect (prediction accuracy) than most of my other texts. One comparison it does have with a few of my articles, like Pintrich's, is that it makes use of the MSLQ; a questionnaire used to evaluate self-regulation. I did find that the MSLQ is possibly outdated, so that raises a lot of questions regarding Miller's study and potentially even some of my other sources.

Articles:
1. Miller, Dionne. "Two-Year Community: Learning How Students Learn: An Exploration of Self-Regulation Strategies in a Two-Year College General Chemistry Class." Journal of College Science Teaching J. Coll. Sci. Teach. 044.03 (2015): 11-16. Web.
2.Pintrich, Paul R. "A Conceptual Framework for Assessing Motivation and Self-Regulated Learning in College Students." Educational Psychology Review 16.4 (2004): 385-407. Web.

Research Blog #8: Case

My case regarding my topic of self-regulation will be about self-regulation in college students in writing classes. I chose this as my case because writing is one of the topics in college where most students have trouble due to all the distractions and difficulties that arise when actually trying to get to the writing. I have a few potential sources on this topic including "The Expos Five" (a documentary studying the journeys of 5 college students taking Expository Writing), "Making the Writing Process Work: Strategies for Composition and Self-regulation" (book), and "Self-Regulated Strategy Instruction in College Developmental Writing" (a scholarly article). This is a great case because writing is one of the most self-regulation intensive processes, not only in college, but also for authors and other writers.


Materials: 

1.https://vimeo.com/14011000

2. https://books.google.com/books/about/Making_the_Writing_Process_Work.html?id=M_BJAAAAYAAJ

3. http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=20d945ee-1b77-4df4-9188-c221c05d00b2%40sessionmgr110&hid=121&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=EJ1071555&db=eric

Research Blog #7: Frame

Some of the theories used in my paper are the SRL theory, the MSLQ, and although it's not necessarily a theory, I also use a few ideas from the Marshmallow Test to expand and compare on other topics. These concepts help me make sense of my project because they are quite renowned and frequently used in the self-regulatory researching field; making them very useful to explain certain studies or tests. The SRL (self-regulated learning) theory is a revised version of the IP (information processing) theory, which mostly took the cognitive aspect into account when evaluating self-regulation. Pintrich’s SRL theory “takes a much more inclusive perspective on student learning to include not only cognitive, but also motivational and affective factors, as well as social contextual factors (Pintrich, 2000b)” (Pintrich, 386). There are also four general assumptions that most of the SRL models share:

1. active, constructive assumption
2. potential for control assumption
3. goal, criterion, or standard assumption
4. self-regulatory activities are mediators between personal and contextual characteristics and actual achievement or performance

I go into further detail about these 4 assumptions in my paper, but this is the basis of the SRL theory; which is most likely going to be the my most used and important source.

Research Blog #6: Visual

It was a bit tough for me finding a visual that could fit my project, but when I saw this one I was satisfied and decided to use it. This image shows some of the components that affect self-regulation, and having control over them could lead to better self-regulation. If the word on the right next to the upward arrow isn't that visible, it says "performance." The way it's placed along side the arrow indicates that as mastery over the three self-regulation strategies increase, so will overall performance. I think this visual fits in with my paper because one of the things I try to show in my paper is that increased self-regulation will lead to better performance academically for college students. I think this will also be a useful image for my oral presentation and perhaps my research paper as well.

Literature Review Blog #4

Visual


Citation

Mischel, Walter. The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-control. Little, Brown. Print. 

Summary

This book revolves around the implications of self-control and how even something as trivial as taking a marshmallow now or waiting to receive two is an indicator of a student's potential in academics or other functions.

Author

Walter Mischel: Mischel is a renowned American psychologist specializing in personality theory and social psychology. I think this fact alone is reason enough for me to use his material in my paper, especially this book of his as it focuses on self-regulation. 

Key terms

1. High delay - those who could, on a consistent basis, wait and were not subject to their impulses.
2. Hot or Cool - two ways used to describe the brain with "hot" being emotional, reflexive, unconscious — and t "cool" being cognitive, reflective, slower, and effortful.

Quotes

1. "Self-control is crucial for the successful pursuit of long-term goals. It is equally essential for developing the self-restraint and empathy needed to build caring and mutually supportive relationships.It can help people avoid becoming entrapped early in life, dropping out of school, becoming impervious to consequences, or getting stuck in jobs they hate." 
2. "The marshmallow experiments convinced me that if people can change how they mentally represent a stimulus, they can exert self-control and escape from being victims of the hot stimuli that have come to control their behavior."
3. "Beginning in early childhood, far too many people live in untrustworthy, unreliable worlds in which promises for delayed larger rewards are made but never kept.  Given this history, it makes little sense to wait rather than grab whatever is at hand."

Value

I think this source has the potential to be the backbone of my research due to the fact that it explores my topic of self-regulation fully and it is also very famous; which means many other researchers have review or critics of this experiment which will broaden the type and amount of information I have.