Self-regulated learning, as an active approach to learning at which students set the goals themselves, insist on them, monitor and evaluate their results and in view of that change their behaviour, has become increasingly important in education in the last decades. Numerous studies of adolescents with specific learning disabilities reveal the particulars of their self-regulation of learning. They need more support in their family and educational environment due to their peculiarities and because of the obstacles, they encounter in the learning process. It has been also established that students with specific learning disabilities use compensatory strategies to effectively overcome learning difficulties and that it is possible to influence the improvement of their self-regulation and, indirectly, their academic performance by taking a systematic approach.
The theoretical part of the research is based on the definition and delimitation of the concepts of self-regulation, self-regulation of learning, metacognition, and learning to learn. It is grounded in numerous studies which deal with the importance of self-regulated learning for students with specific learning disabilities. The main purpose of the research is to determine how the process of self-regulation of learning of grammar school boys with deficiencies in specific learning areas. In Slovenia, this concept identifies children with severe learning disabilities. The aim of the acquired knowledge is to increase the quality of pedagogical support to these students. In the qualitative study, there participated three successful grammar school (gymnasium) students with deficiencies in specific learning areas, their mothers, and their teachers. The research has been dedicated to the specifics of the process of self-regulated learning of students with deficiencies in specific learning areas, the support of the family and educational environment in this process, the course of the process of co-creation in the process of support and assistance to these students, and the connection between proactive or defensive self-regulation and school performance.
The results show that the students studied use numerous compensatory strategies in cognitive and emotional field for overcoming learning barriers, wherein the most noticeable are the strategies of searching for sources of assistance, the investment and regulation of effort, the long term and daily scheduling of learning, and different strategies of emotional self-regulation. They have intensive support in the family environment, which takes place mainly in terms of direct learning support, monitoring, control, and stimulation of development and reinforcement of their strengths. An important part of the parents’ assistance is also their cooperation with school, wherein the family environment also provides emotional and motivational support for students. It was discovered that teachers use numerous elements of good teaching practice to influence students’ interest and self-regulation of learning, although this doesn't imply a systematic development of self-regulation capabilities. It has become evident that teachers do not have sufficient background bases to support students with deficiencies in specific learning areas and that all participants of the research ascribe great importance to the student-teacher relationship. In the process of students’ support and assistance in the educational environment all three elements of the working relationship have been identified, representing the basis of the process of co-creation: agreement on cooperation, instrumental definition of the problem, and personal conduct. The process of co-creation is realized to a limited extent and only with those professional workers who have personal affinities toward such a method of working with students. With the students in question, the proactive self-regulating pattern has been discovered, which is reflected in their sense of personal control, attribution of own success to invested effort, own efficiency, setting learning objectives, regulation of effort, work, temporal regulation, coping strategies, learning strategies and strategies of regulation. All three students are successful and for that reason, it is possible to conclude that there is a link between proactive self-regulative pattern and a positive learning success.
The master's thesis represents a contribution to the scientific development of special and rehabilitation pedagogy that takes a qualitative approach to elucidate the processes of self-regulative learning of adolescents with deficiencies in specific learning areas. An important finding for the practice is the extremely exposed role of the family environment in this process, which indicates the need to improve the quality of support of self-regulated learning for these young people in the educational environment. This would moreover increase educational opportunities for those young people with deficiencies in specific learning areas that do not have intensive support in a family environment. In this context, we can see a need for further study of the teacher's role in the development of self-regulation of learning in the framework of instructions of specific learning topics, and developing systematic and effective approaches of support to young people with deficiencies in specific learning areas in their self-regulation of learning in the educational environment.
|
