Sidekick: A Tool for Helping Students Manage Behavior in Self-initiated Learning Scenarios

2. Related Research

There are many models and definitions of self-regulated learning (SRL) such as those described in the works of Pintrich (2004), Winne and Hadwin (1998) and Zimmerman (2003). According to Pintrich (2004), most SRL models commonly share four assumptions. First, learners are assumed to be active participants in their learning process. Second, learners are assumed to be capable of monitoring, controlling and regulating aspects of their cognition, motivation, behavior and some aspects of their environment. Third, students’ performance can be compared to a standard, goal or criteria to assess whether the current process can be continued or if there is a need to change it. Lastly, it is assumed that learners’ self-regulation can affect their performance and the achievement of their learning goals.

Although we consider all these SRL assumptions, we focus on supplementing the third and fourth assumptions by helping students assess their performance so they can identify which behaviors they need to revise or which behaviors they should retain to improve their performance. We focused on this assumption because research has shown that students engaging in SRL often experience difficulty assessing their own performance, selecting learning tactics, monitoring learning tactics and evaluating the effectiveness of their learning tactics (Winne, 2002; Winne & Hadwin, 2013) indicating their need for support.