Learning across contexts: How students regulate their learning in an informal context

Abstract

Primary school learners are often engaging in learning opportunities in both inside and outside of school contexts. To understand how these different contexts afford opportunities for metacognition and self-regulation, we follow local primary school students of elementary grades five and six. In Vygotsky's work, metacognition appears as an awareness of one's own thinking processes and the way they can be controlled and directed. For Vygotsky, metacognition and self-regulation are completely intertwined in which the latter takes the forms of control over one's attention, thoughts, and actions (Fox & Riconscente, 2008). Consequently, the understanding of these important constructs supports the understanding of human behavior, learning, and development within a broader context of all human activities. To explore the learning of metacognition and self-regulation in students' learning, we draw data from an informal context: a primary school, co-curricular activities (CCA), in bowling. Interpreting from a variety of data-collection techniques such as field observations, interviews, field notes, and video recording, the research team has been observing the bowling team's practices at least once a week since January 2010. Although the school's team comprises of more than thirty students, we targeted our observations to nine of these students. A further sub-section of two participants were selected and interviews were conducted to collect information on strategic planning, self-efficacy, and knowledge application. Moreover, artifacts such as written statements of the way their families assisted in their learning in an informal context were also collected. Preliminary findings indicate that learning in an informal context affords opportunities for metacognition and self-regulation in interesting and authentic ways. In addition, students point out that learning strategies can be used in both formal and informal contexts. The findings also illustrate the importance of linking students' development of metacognitive abilities to parental mentoring in providing a fuller understanding of their learning in both formal and informal contexts.