Empowering students to become self-regulated learners

Abstract

Professional school counselors must focus their efforts to accomplish objectives central to their school's overriding mission (Sprinthall, 1981). Today, as never before, schools must empower students to enhance their academic achievement and become motivated, lifelong learners. In the future, students will need to be able to proactively and assertively thrive in an information-rich and technology-driven economy. As the tragic events of September 11, 2001, bear witness, a new generation will be severely challenged to live up to the ideals and fulfill the civic obligations of a true pluralistic democracy. Growing connections across the globe require individuals who can establish positive relationships with others, who may be markedly different from them. While there are some positive trends in the academic achievement data in the United States (e.g., equivalent mathematics achievement scores between girls and boys, at all ages), there are also realities that threaten a democratic society (e.g., the gross disparity in academic achievement levels between different ethnic and racial groups; U.S. Department of Education, 2000). Many studies have connected lower academic performance to high levels of student disengagement from classroom learning activities. This article discusses how professional school counselors can enhance academic achievement by empowering all students to become self-regulated learners. Researchers have clearly demonstrated that students who employ self-regulated, self-determined approaches to learning achieve more and are more satisfied in their work (Pintrich, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2000). School counselors can make a unique contribution to facilitating student academic development by intervening at two different levels. First, school counselors need to play an active role in shaping those pivotal structural components of the school context that nurture the development of self-regulated learners. Second, school counselors should work with students and teachers to increase student use of specific learning strategies whose effectiveness have been supported by empirical research. Counselor involvement at both levels has clear benefits for students and places school counseling at the forefront of national efforts to enhance student academic achievement. To connect current research findings on self-regulated learning to school counselor intervention strategies, this article is divided into three parts. The first part presents a framework for integrating current research on self-regulated learning. The next part outlines components of the school context that either encourage or inhibit the development of self-regulated learners. It is argued that by more fully implementing a comprehensive school counseling program (Campbell & Dahir, 1997; Gysbers & Henderson, 2000), school counselors can shape those aspects of the school context creating the conditions that encourage the development of self-regulated learning. Finally, the third part identifies both effective learning strategies and the steps necessary to motivate students to use these strategies. School counselors have a critical role to play in working with both teachers and students to increase the use of achievement-enhancing learning strategies. Self-regulated Learning Pintrich (2000) defined self-regulated learning as an active, constructive process whereby learners set goals for their learning and then attempt to monitor, regulate, and control their cognition, motivation, and behavior, guided and constrained by their goals and the contextual features of the environment. These self-regulatory activities can mediate the relationships between individuals and the context, and their overall achievement. (p. 453) Pintrich (2000) identified four common assumptions about self-regulated learning. First, self-regulated learners do more than passively consume information that has been presented to them by others. …

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