Abstract:

Self-regulated learning nowadays has been seen as the way forward in the 21st century learning. The ability of the students to develop their own learning modes is of great essence in the process of education in modern times. The choice of learning has been seen to be a way to motivate effective participation in the different modes of learning whether in conventional (traditional) face-to-face manner or online.

This paper investigates self-regulatory learning skills from two different dimensional student perspectives, between students from developed countries and less developed countries. Firstly, we revealed related studies on conventional self-mode study supporting self-regulatory learning skills, bringing together findings from several components that were applied in aiding individual learning patterns from the perspective of these two different learning dimensions. Secondly, using themes from the literature review, we provide findings from a qualitative perspective from three groups of universities students:
(a) The University of Warwick, an institution in the United Kingdom (UK)
(b) North West University an institution in South Africa (SA).

We will be conducting a comparative study from these three conventional students demographic data:
(i) the first from the UK (developed country) and
(ii) from SA (developing country).

This provides direct comparison between the students’ choice and preferences in studying so as to investigate whether there is any similar relationship in the pattern of study. In addition, the study also explores a preliminary investigation on self-regulated learning skills acquired from the support of modern educational methods and the impact it has in both developed and less developed nations.

Finally, we discuss how the students from these nations engage with their studies. Looking into how technology and modern devices influences and support in building students ability to develop self-regulatory learning skills. Our results indicate how modern devices and technology help to foster learning in developed nations and the impact or effect it has to less developed nations. The data collection structure in this study comprises a focus group interview conducted with first year undergraduate students (home students) in the department of Computer Science (CS) at the University of Warwick, who participated in an online blended learning module in computer security while the others consist of qualitative data analysis from fourth year undergraduate students from the North West University in South Africa and qualitative data from third year undergraduate students (overseas students) from Centre for Education Studies (CES) at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. In conclusion, this research applied a mixed method of both quantitative and qualitative content analysis to evaluate the data using themes emerging from the data collection process and using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) descriptive analysis to evaluate the results.

Keywords:

Self-regulated learning, modern technologies, choice of learning, motivation.