Self-regulated learning strategies during self-controlled practice in physical education

Introduction: Self-regulated learning entails students to be able to organize or control their practice to actively control the acquisition of skills. In this respect, Zimmerman (2002) discerns three cyclical phases: a forethought phase for planning, a performance phase for executing and self-observation and a self-reflection phase to evaluate practice. The implication is that individual differences in students’ self-regulated learning should lead to observable differences in practice behaviors. This study aims to uncover such differences in self-controlled practice behaviors of physical education students, with a special focus on the forethought (i.e., strategic planning) and the performance (i.e., self-observation) phases.In addition, this study evaluates whether such differences are related to self-efficacy, task motivation and predicted task success score. Methods: A total of 79 students (Mage = 13.1 years) practiced a novel aiming task in which they self-controlled the distance from which they practiced. We determined students’ practice strategies and gauged self-reported (i.e., self-efficacy and task motivation) and behavioral(i.e., predicted task success score) self-regulated learning indices. Results: Pearson correlations revealed three groups based on their practice strategy: A Distance-group (i.e., adjusted distance based on foregoing distance), a Score-group (i.e., adjusted distance based on foregoing performance), and an Other-group (i.e., no strategy was discerned). No group differences in self-regulated learning indices were observed, except for the predicted success score. The Distance-group underestimated practice performance whereas the Score and Other-groups overestimated performance. Discussion: This study identified different observable behaviors that indicate distinct ways in which students apply self-regulated learning during selfcontrolled practice. These differences relate to the degree in which they used strategies and monitored their performance and underline that students’ ability to self-regulate can be observed directly during practice.