learning - Academic Conferences Limited

Stella Lee et al.
What sets self-regulated learners apart is their awareness of when they know a skill or fact and when
they do not, at a meta knowledge level - i.e. they plan, set goals, organize, self-monitor, and selfevaluate
thorough out their studies(Zimmerman, 1990). In addition, self-regulation works best when
learners are provided with continual feedback concerning the effectiveness of their learning approach.
This is something that an adaptive system can provide as it can support and reinforce self-monitoring
techniques as well as self-regulated learning strategies. We mainly focus on this aspect of selfregulation
in relation to the design of an eLearning system wherein students can receive feedback if
they choose to do so.
Our model’s SRL interface includes components that allow students to self-reflect along with
components that engage them in self-regulation. On one hand of the spectrum, self-reflection could
be as simple as a thinking process made self aware, the intangible 'ah ha' moment of a conceptual
breakthrough; on the other hand, self-regulation could be more tangible as a system or a tutor can
observe what students do after they self-reflect. For example, in debugging, a student can self-reflect
on errors identified by the compiler at the end of each compile of the program being developed. The
system can track/record the number of errors and warnings faced by the student at the end of each
compile. The system can also classify the types of errors encountered by a single student over
multiple sessions of program development. Looking at this list of errors is an act of self-reflection.
However, self-regulation takes it one step further. The student may try to identify most common errors
and warnings he/she faced, take notes on how he/she resolved these common errors and warnings,
and refer to these notes when he/she encounters these common errors and warnings when writing
another program. This "proactive self-reflection" is what we identified as self-regulation even thought
at this stage, we are not planning on tracking the end results of using the study skill tools, it is the
provision of these “how to” study skill guides and tools embedded as options for students to assist
them in becoming better self-regulated, self-reflected learners that we are interested in.
3. Program of research
3.1 Participants
In order to undertake this program of research, 60-80 voluntary participants who enroll in COMP 268 -
Introduction to Java Programming course at a distance learning university in Canada will participate in
the study. The participants are adult learners in various age groups with various programming skills.
This is a 100 level (all introductory computer science courses start with the number “2” at this
institution) course and there is no prerequisite. We expect participants to have at least basic
computing and distanceLearning skills.
3.2 Material and procedure
One unit from COMP 268 - Introduction to Java Programming course consists of five learning
concepts has been redesigned and redeveloped to presents a series of learning activities designed
according to the ELT theory - i.e. the material has been designed to be presented in four different
learning modes: watching, discussing, diagramming, and trying out. These four modes correspond to
ELT’s four learning dimensions as discussed in Section 2. For example, for “watching” mode, the
material might be presented in a YouTube video tutorial with narration and textual explanation. A
learner is free to choose any of the learning activities to begin his/her study. The system doesn’t
initiate or suggest any particular learning paths. The idea is that we are giving the learner complete
control with respect to which learning activity suits his/her learning preference at the time of the study
while providing learning options. According to ELT, a learner can begin at any stage of the learning
cycle, but it is most beneficial for acquiring new knowledge if he/she would go through them all
eventually to fully understand and apply this new knowledge. He/she might or might not choose to go
through them all; the decision is his/her to make. If at the end of any chosen learning activity, the
learner feels that he/she has a good grasp of the material, he/she can opt to skip the rest of the cycle
and go to the next topic. A post-test is available at the end of the unit for learner to self-assess his/her
knowledge both at the domain and meta level. In another word, learners can test how well they have
learn a certain programming concepts in Java as well as whether the associated key study skills are
helpful to them in regulating their own learning and deploying them as learning strategies. The posttest
is a formative test and it will not affect the participants’ grade in their overall course performance.
In addition, as supplementary learning material, a SRL theory based interface titled “Key Study Skills”
is available on the upper right-hand corner of the webpage to assist with learning about meta
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