SELF-REGULATION INVOLVES MORE THAN METACOGNITION - A SOCIAL COGNITIVEPERSPECTIVE

The issues that Winne found troubling about student failures to self-r egulate effectively were considered from a social cognitive perspectiv e. From this viewpoint, self-regulation involves more than metacogniti ve knowledge and skill, it involves an underlying sense of self-effica cy and personal agency and the motivational and behavioral processes t o put these self beliefs into effect. Views of self-regulated learning that do not include this core self-referential system have difficulty explaining human failures to self-regulate, especially when such effo rts are known metacognitively to be helpful. To explain students' self -regulation failures as well as their successes in naturalistic settin gs, educational psychologists need to expand their views of self-regul ation beyond metacognitive trait, ability, or stage formulations and b egin treating it as a complex interactive process involving social, mo tivational, and behavioral components. Such a perspective reveals not only the complexity of self-regulation but also the human side of it-t he role of our self-doubts, false beliefs, unfortunate self-monitoring , and strategy choice dilemmas.