The Impact of Personal Learning Environments Platform on Junior Middle School Students’ Self-Regulated Learning and English Reading Achievements

Abstract

With the popularization of personalized learning and student-oriented teaching methods, Personal Learning Environments are gradually emerging in formal education. This study aims to apply the PLEs-based junior middle school English reading platform (PLEs-JER) developed by the mentor team to test the platform’s impact on learners’ self-regulated learning ability and cognitive learning achievement. 150 eighth-grade students, from a middle school in southeast China, were divided into two groups: an experimental group of 75 students who used the PLEs-JER platform during their spare time alongside traditional teaching, and the other group received traditional teaching. At the beginning and end of the experiment, participants were subjected to an English reading test and a questionnaire survey on self-regulated learning skills to evaluate their achievements in English reading and SRL skills. In addition, interviews were conducted with participants regarding their satisfaction with the PLEs-JER platform. Results indicated that after the intervention, the experimental and control groups showed statistically significant differences in English reading test scores and SLR competence surveys, and the qualitative findings supported the quantitative results, indicating that the PLEs-JER platform can improve cognitive learning achievement and SLR ability. The implications of the study for researchers and practitioners in online education are discussed.