Is Externally-regulated Learning by a Human Tutor Effective in Facilitating Learning with Hypermedia?

Abstract

We examined the effectiveness of self-regulated learning (SRL) and externally regulated learning (ERL) on college students' learning about a science topic with hypermedia. Eighty-two (N = 82) college students with little knowledge of the topic were randomly assigned either to the SRL or ERL condition. Learners in the SRL condition regulated their own learning, while learners in the ERL condition had access to a human tutor who facilitated their self- regulated learning. We converged product (pretest to posttest declarative knowledge and qualitative shifts in participants' mental models) with process (think-aloud) data to examine the effectiveness of SRL and ERL on learning about the circulatory system during a 40-minute session. Analysis of the declarative knowledge measures showed that the ERL condition group means were statistically significantly higher than the group means for the SRL condition on the labeling and flow diagram tasks. There were no statistically significant differences between group means on the matching task, but both groups showed statistically significant increases in performance. Further analyses showed no statistically significant differences for the distribution of mental model shift between groups. In terms of self-regulatory processes, participants in the SRL condition engaged in more frequent use of sub-goals, self-questioning, selecting new information sources, re-reading, summarizing, free searching, and enacting control over the context of their learning. In comparison, the ERL participants engaged in more frequent activation of prior knowledge, utilization of feeling of knowing and judgment of learning, monitoring their progress toward goals, drawing, hypothesizing, coordination of information sources, and expressing task difficulty.