Use of self-regulated learning strategies by second-year industrial engineering students

Abstract

The Study Cycle is a set of guidelines rich with self-regulated learning (SRL) techniques that enables students to plan, prepare, and enact their studying by focusing on five comprehensive steps: previewing before class, engaging in class, reviewing after class, holding study sessions, and seeking help as a supplement. This paper reports on initial findings of a qualitative study in which a workshop on the Study Cycle was taught to a class of second-year Industrial Engineering students as an intervention, aiming to understand effects of the module on engineering students' SRL strategy use in an engineering course. Students self-reported SRL strategy use in a one-minute paper pre-workshop and two sets of post-workshop reflections. This paper examines which components of the Study Cycle students self-report as being useful in their engineering courses prior to the module and their perceptions of effective study strategies after the module. Main findings include that students self-reported SRL strategies from all ten categories which were analyzed via a priori coding: self-evaluation, organizing and transforming, goal-setting and planning, seeking information, keeping records and monitoring, environmental structuring, self-consequences, rehearsing and memorizing, seeking social assistance, and reviewing records.