Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic instigated a rapid migration of face-to-face (F2F) to online courses during the spring term of 2020 at every educational level around the globe. This migration and the continued reliance with online and remote delivery of courses during fall 2020, profoundly influenced learning within online environments, specifically in regard to metacognition and self-regulation. This study investigates undergraduate student perceptions of metacognitive and self-regulatory skills during spring and fall term of 2020 to determine if moving from F2F to online environments during the pandemic changed student perceptions of goal orientation (learning or performance), use of time management strategies, help seeking behaviors, self-regulation, and self-evaluation strategies by race/ethnicity (white and non-white) and gender (female and male). All undergraduate and graduate students (N=16,415) at one university in the United States were invited to participate in an online survey fall term 2020 assessing metacognitive and learning strategies, socio-emotional factors, and technological availability/use during spring 2020 and fall 2020. Data from 1,244 undergraduate participants (e.g., 60.9% white females; 10.8% non-white females; 23.9% white males; 4.5% non-white males) were analyzed using the scores on the five subscales. Two-way repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted to investigate changes in perceptions on metacognitive and self-regulatory skills from spring to fall 2020 by race and gender. Preliminary analysis of data indicate significant differences from spring to fall 2020, with students reporting to be less learning goal oriented (M=28.82, SE=.20; M=28.14, SE=.22), engaged in less help seeking behaviors (M=14.55, SE=.18; M=14.20, SE=.19), and less likely to use self-regulation strategies (M=25.76, SE=.25; M=25.19, SE=.27) in the fall. In addition, significant main effects were found in these differences by gender. Female students compared to males reported a statistically significant increase from spring to fall in help seeking behaviors (M=14.54, SE=.18; M=14.21, SE=.28) and use of self-regulatory strategies (M=25.54, SE=.25; M=25.42, SE=.40) and males reported an increase in the use of self-evaluation strategies (M=12.72, SE=.26; M=12.59, SE=.17) from spring to fall 2020. Only one interaction effect, between race/ethnicity and gender, was found on student perceptions of metacognition and self-regulation spring and fall 2020, indicating non-white male and non-white female perceptions of their own goal orientation changed significantly from a more learning orientation in spring 2020 (M=29.31, SE=.61; M=28.07, SE=.39; respectively) to a performance orientation in fall 2020 (M=27.52, SE=.69; M=27.82, SE=.45; respectively). Results from this study indicate there were significant changes in student perceptions of critical metacognitive and self-regulatory skill use from spring to fall of 2020 and that, on occasion, gender and race/ethnicity impacted those findings. This presentation will share the results of this study, in addition to a theoretical analysis of the influence and outcomes of the move from F2F to online pedagogy during the COVID-19 pandemic, with an emphasis on the effects on motivational and self-regulatory factors related to undergraduate student achievement by race and ethnicity.

Keywords:

Metacognition, Self-Regulation, F2F to Online, Impact of COVID-19.