Training self-assessment and task-selection skills: A cognitive approach to improving self-regulated learning Danny Kostons a, b, * , Tamara van Gog c , Fred Paas c, d a Centre for Learning Sciences and Technologies (CELSTEC), Open University, The Netherlands b Groninger Institute for Educational Research, University of Groningen, The Netherlands c Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands d Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong, Australia article info Article history: Received 19 January 2011 Received in revised form 25 August 2011 Accepted 26 August 2011 Keywords: Self-regulated learning Self-assessment Task selection Example-based learning abstract For self-regulated learning to be effective, students need to be able to accurately assess their own performance on a learning task and use this assessment for the selection of a new learning task. Evidence suggests, however, that students have difficulties with accurate self-assessment and task selection, which may explain the poor learning outcomes often found with self-regulated learning. In experiment 1, the hypothesis was investigated and confirmed that observing a human model engaging in self-assessment, task selection, or both could be effective for secondary education students’ (N ¼ 80) acquisition of self- assessment and task-selection skills. Experiment 2 investigated and confirmed the hypothesis that secondary education students’ (N ¼ 90) acquisition of self-assessment and task-selection skills, either through examples or through practice, would enhance the effectiveness of self-regulated learning. It can be concluded that self-assessment and task-selection skills indeed play an important role in self- regulated learning and that training these skills can significantly increase the amount of knowledge students can gain from self-regulated learning in which they choose their own learning tasks. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Self-regulated learning is an active, constructive process in which learners plan, monitor, and control their own learning process (e.g., Pintrich, 2000; Winne, 2001; Winne & Hadwin, 1998; Zimmerman, 1990; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2001). Self-regulated learning can occur at different levels, from learners controlling how long they engage in studying a given task or whether they want to restudy it (Karpicke, 2009; Metcalfe, 2009; Thiede & Dunlosky, 1999), to learners controlling what information they want to study (e.g., in a hypermedia learning environment; Azevedo, 2005; Azevedo & Cromley, 2004; Azevedo, Moos, Greene, Winters, & Cromley, 2008) or what learning tasks they want to work on (Corbalan, Kester, & Van Merriënboer, 2008; Kostons, Van Gog, & Paas, 2010; Ross, Morrison, & O’Dell, 1989). This article focuses on self-regulated learning in which learners can choose their own learning tasks. Research has shown that having control over what information to study or what tasks to work on is not effective for novices’ self-regulated learning (Azevedo et al., 2008; Goforth, 1994; Lawless & Brown, 1997; Niemiec, Sikorski, & Walberg, 1996; Williams, 1996). We assume that this may be due to novices’ lack of self-assessment and task-selection skills, which play a crucial role in this kind of self-regulated learning. To verify this assumption, we investigate whether training these skills results in higher self-assessment and task-selection accuracy (Experiment 1) and whether this in turn leads to higher learning outcomes attained through self-regulated learning (Experiment 2). Providing learners with control over the learning tasks they work on is believed to foster their self-regulated learning skills and to result in personalized learning trajectories (Hannafin, 1984; Williams, 1996). Rather than having all learners follow the same instruction or practice schedule, which is often targeted at the average learner, personalized instruction allows learners who have difficulty with a task or topic to start at a lower level of complexity or obtain more support, while learners who find the new material easy can quickly move on to more complex materials. Such personalized instruction is expected to enhance students’ motiva- tion and learning outcomes more than non-personalized instruc- tion that is the same for all students (Niemiec et al., 1996; Pintrich, 2004; Schnackenberg & Sullivan, 2000). However, there is little * Corresponding author. Groninger Institute for Educational Research, University of Groningen, Grote Rozenstraat 3, 9712 TG Groningen, The Netherlands. Tel.: þ31 503639609; fax: þ31 503636670. E-mail address: d.d.n.m.kostons@rug.nl (D. Kostons). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Learning and Instruction journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/learninstruc 0959-4752/$ e see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2011.08.004 Learning and Instruction xxx (2011) 1e12 Please cite this article inpress as: Kostons, D., et al., Training self-assessment and task-selection skills: A cognitive approach to improving self- regulated learning, Learning and Instruction (2011), doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2011.08.004