Abstract:

University students’ abrupt and forced migration from face-to-face to online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic illuminated many learning and pedagogical challenges. Self-regulation, or the ability of students to plan, monitor, and evaluate their own learning is an important skill needed for success in any learning environment. Effective self-regulation skills are a critical necessity for learning online where there is more student autonomy than in a face-to-face environment. This study asked students to rate their perceptions of self-regulatory skills at two points: at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (spring 2020) and after restrictions were lifted (fall 2020). Are there group differences in perceived self-regulatory skills, specifically learning strategies management and goal orientation, during (spring 2020) and post-pandemic (fall 2020)? In addition, were there any differences in learning strategies management and goal orientation by student gender (male/female) or student career (undergraduate/graduate)? Approximately 1,800 (n=1,816) students from a university in the US completed a modified version of the Metacognitive Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) in the fall of 2020. Items on the MSLQ asked students to rate themselves at that moment in time (fall 2020) and on those same items, retrospectively, during the COVID-19 pandemic the previous semester (spring 2020). Approximately 69% (n=1,264) of students who completed the survey were female, 31% (n=552) were male, 77% (n=1,416) were undergraduate students, and 23% (n=400) were seeking advanced degrees (masters, doctoral). Repeated measures ANOVA’s were conducted to investigate differences in students’ perceived use of self-regulation strategies (learning strategies management and goal orientation) during and after the pandemic by gender (male/female) and academic career (undergraduate/graduate). Preliminary results indicate significant differences in student perceptions of learning strategies management during (M=32.03; SD=7.1) and after (M=32.46; SD=7.62) the pandemic (F (1, 1812) = 17.91, p> 0.001). Differences by academic career, undergraduate, and graduate students, on the perception of learning strategies management during and after COVID-19 were also statistically significant (F (1, 1812) = 4.82, p.> 0.05). Undergraduate and graduate university students viewed their learning management strategies to be less effective during COVID-19 (M=31.75; SD=7.07 and M=33.00; SD=7.10, respectively) and slightly more positive after COVID-19 (undergraduate M=32.08; SD=7.64 and graduate M=33.83; SD=7.38). Results also indicate a significant difference in student perceptions of goal orientation by academic career during and after COVID-19 (F (1, 1812) = 21.63, p.>0.001). Undergraduate and graduate students had small changes in their perceived goal orientation during (M=20.83; SD=3.88 and M=22.33; SD=4.16, respectively) and after COVID-19 (M=20.46; SD=4.33 and M=22.85; SD=4.01). Overall, student perceptions of their own use of self-regulation strategies during and after the COVID-19 pandemic changed. Furthermore, while no significant group differences were detected by gender, there were significant differences in perceptions of learning management strategies and goal orientation between undergraduate and graduate students. Implications and future directions for research will also be discussed.

Keywords:

Self-regulation, online, pandemic.