Influence of Task Nature on Learner Self-Regulation in Online Activities

This chapter analyses Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) in a virtual community interacting through asynchronous textual communication. The community consisted of trainee teachers of a post-graduate blended course in Educational Technology. The online component of this course was based on a socio-constructivist approach. The study aims to compare SRL practice in different types of collaborative activities carried out online. The investigation method is based on interaction analysis, an approach allowing a systematic study of the content of the messages exchanged by the community members. The results of the study consist of quantitative data on SRL-related events that took place during the learning process, allowing the comparison of activities according to the degree and type of self-regulation displayed by the learners. The results of the study suggest that the nature of the task influences the way students self-regulate. The difference, however, does not lie in the total amount of detected SRL indicators but in their type, therefore suggesting that different types of tasks might induce different kinds of SRL actions. These findings can inform the design of online activities by providing suggestions for the choice of tasks, according to SRL-related pedagogical purposes.