Research Blog #4: Research Proposal

Working Title: Self-Regulation among College Students

Topic

My paper is going to be focused on the implications and effects of self-regulation in college students. Taking pieces from what I have read, it seems that most researchers find that the amount of self-regulation a student possesses has the potential to affect a plethora of different things; academic success, sleep hygiene, and engagement are just a few. I am interested in this topic because self-regulation is a concept that intrigues me and seeing as I am currently a college student, I want to know how it affects those like me.

Research Question

What sort of implications arise for college students depending on their ability to self-regulate?

Theoretical Frame

Although I am not yet sure about what theories I will be using to analyze facts and case studies, I do have an idea of what I am trying to explain. I want to understand what role self-regulation plays in determining the many factors of a college student’s life; their grades, social life, etc. Is self-regulation even that big of a factor when it comes to these things? I want to find out the answer to that question as well. Most cases suggest that the more self-regulated a student is, the more positive affects they'll see as a result of that. One specific framework that did interest me from one of my readings was the SRL(self-regulated learning) Perspective. “the SRL perspective 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).” This quote, from the article “A Conceptual Framework for Assessing Motivation and Self-Regulated Learning in College Students,” presents an interesting theory on how relying on the self can change the way motivation and other factors affect a person. Moreover, Dionne A. Miller performed a study explaining how self-regulation can lead to better performance for students, and improving self-regulation is the way to go if students want to see improvements in their performance.

Research Plan, Case, or Additional Questions

Some additional questions that arise are as follows: How does self-regulation affect a tudent’s academics? Is it possible to change your own control over self-regulation? There are many more questions that also come from this topic, including the one I posed in the theoretical frame section, which was: is self-regulation even that big of a factor when it comes to a college student’s lives? To continue, I am going to be looking for information or case studies pertaining to anything having to do with college students and self-regulation; perhaps a study about how self-regulation affects academic success, or information regarding to what affects the differences in self-regulation among college students. I know it still sounds rather unorganized and it’s clear my paper is not as focused as it should be; but, I feel as though the more I research on the topic, the more my paper will come together. One of the studies that caught my eye was actually in one of the readings we went over in class, “Paying for the Party,” by Armstrong and Hamilton. Even though the main focus is not self-regulation, the study talks about one case where even though the student was very self-regulated, she ended up doing poorly in her classes due to other factors like social status. This shows me that self-regulation is not the only thing that can affect the life of a college student .

Bibliography

Armstrong, Elizabeth and Laura Hamilton. Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP. 2013. Print.

Lehrer, Jonah. "Don't!" The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 18 May 2009. Web. 08 Mar. 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.

Su, Xiaoxia, Ron E. Mcbride, and Ping Xiang. "College Students’ Achievement Goal Orientation and Motivational Regulations in Physical Activity Classes: A Test of Gender Invariance." JTPE Journal of Teaching in Physical Education 34.1 (2015): 2-17. Web.

Todd, Jemma, and Barbara Mullan. "The Role of Self-regulation in Predicting Sleep Hygiene in University Students." Psychology, Health & Medicine 18.3 (2013): 275-88. Web.