Examining task-specific measures and student learning strategies in context

Despite its popularity, research on self-regulated learning (SRL) has been plagued by methodological concerns. The purpose of this study was to explore ways to improve the validity of self-report measures of SRL. Specifically, this study investigated whether students’ reports of their metacognitive and cognitive learning strategies in the domains of mathematics and English would vary across close-ended and open-ended questions. Furthermore, this study investigated whether the framing of the question as domain-general (e.g., strategies used in math in general) or task-specific (e.g., strategies used for the math midterm) would affect the content and quality of students’ responses. High school girls in the 9th and 10th grades were asked to complete two separate online questionnaires (e.g. open and closed-ended) regarding their study strategies and tactics for math and English. The results indicated that regardless of subject domain or context (task-specific vs. general; open-ended vs. close-ended), the most frequently cited strategies were those related to rehearsal and/or memorization. Overall, the results suggest that adapting a close-ended measure to be more task-specific may marginally improve the validity of the measure. Implications for improving the validity of self-report measures of SRL are discussed