Background/Purpose: While Zimmerman (1998, 2000) defines self-regulated learning (SRL) as “self-generated thoughts, feelings, and actions designed to influence one's acquisition of knowledge and skill,” most research focuses on acquiring these traits in classroom settings; few studies explore self-regulation of ‘skills' in other domains. As part of a larger project, this study examined a group of high school athletes for evidence of SLR.
Method: Twelve high school athletes (6 male; 6 female) were interviewed and asked why they were in athletics, what goals they set, if it was important to work hard and why they tried hard. All interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and subjected to analysis of content.
Analysis/Results: Three researchers attained 85-88% agreement during unitizing and all disagreements between four trained researchers during categorization were discussed until 100% agreement occurred. Three themes emerged: a) Perceived Benefits from Participating in Athletics (“It helps you get physically stronger”), b) Identified Attributes Within the Athletics Context “I just really wanted to get better and improve…” and, c) Evaluation of Performance (”I'm successful if I'm beating the guy next to me”).
Conclusions: Students are self-regulated to the degree that they are metacognitively, motivationally, and behaviorally active participants as well as being intrinsically interested (Greene & Azevedo; 2007). Four indicators of SRL that could be attributed to these athletes included: External, Instrinsic, Introjected and Identified. Pintrich (2000) also notes the importance of goal setting in the SRL process. Interestingly, only half of the participants set specific goals for themselves yet often spoke of seeking personal skill improvement.
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