Self-regulated learning strategies & academic achievement in online higher education learning environments: A systematic review

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2015.04.007Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Time management, metacognition, effort regulation & critical thinking predicted grade.

  • Rehearsal, elaboration and organisation were not related to online grade.

  • Peer learning should be prioritised in the context of online learning.

  • SRL strategy effects are weaker in the online context than in the traditional classroom.

Abstract

As enrolments in online courses continue to increase, there is a need to understand how students can best apply self-regulated learning strategies to achieve academic success within the online environment. A search of relevant databases was conducted in December 2014 for studies published from 2004 to Dec 2014 examining SRL strategies as correlates of academic achievement in online higher education settings. From 12 studies, the strategies of time management, metacognition, effort regulation, and critical thinking were positively correlated with academic outcomes, whereas rehearsal, elaboration, and organisation had the least empirical support. Peer learning had a moderate positive effect, however its confidence intervals crossed zero. Although the contributors to achievement in traditional face-to-face settings appear to generalise to on-line context, these effects appear weaker and suggest that (1) they may be less effective, and (2) that other, currently unexplored factors may be more important in on-line contexts.

Section snippets

Background

Increased internet access in the past decade has led to a rapid increase in the number of students electing to undertake their higher education learning experience online, rather than in traditional face-to-face settings (Greenland & Moore, 2014). In contrast to traditional learning where student/teacher interaction and communication occur face-to-face in a classroom (Artino & Jones, 2012), online learning relies on the use of asynchronistic and synchronistic interaction and communication

Eligibility criteria

Papers were restricted to peer reviewed journal papers published within the last decade in English language journals between the years 2004 to Dec 2014.

Search strategy

The search strategy encompassed systematically reviewing peer-reviewed published papers with an initial database search of PsycINFO, CINAHL Complete, ERIC, MEDLINE, and psychARTICLES. This search was undertaken for papers that explored SRL strategies and academic achievement in online higher education settings with the aim of maximising relevant

Description of included papers

The initial database search strategy resulted in 1789 findings; 130 full text articles were assessed for eligibility and ultimately twelve papers remained which were considered relevant for this systematic review. See Fig. 1, which outlines the flow diagram of papers that remained. A full list of included (n = 12) and excluded studies (n = 118) with reasons for exclusions are found in Table 1, Table 2, respectively. One study (Carson, 2011) was included twice as two different online student cohorts

Discussion

We synthesised the last 10 years of research into the association between SRL strategies and student academic achievement in higher education courses that were taught wholly online. This systematic review found that nine SRL strategies had been investigated in relation to academic achievement in online learners in higher education: metacognition, time management, effort regulation, peer learning, elaboration, rehearsal, organisation, critical thinking, and help seeking. Of these, help seeking

Financial support/funding source

None.

Conflict of interest

None.

Acknowledgements

None.

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