Well-developed self-regulated learning is the key to enabling learners to
achieve both their educational goals and wider personal development.
However, this can be especially challenging for adolescents with learning
difficulties, because of the neuropsychological and neurophysiological
characteristics of such individuals, as well as the significant disparities
they tend to experience between the effort put into learning on the one
hand, and the resulting learning achievements on the other. In the current
comparative multiple case study, we researched the self-regulated learning
of three younger adolescents with learning difficulties and that of one
younger adolescent without learning difficulties. The data were subjected
to triangulation methods and qualitative analysis, with the results showing
that the younger adolescents with learning difficulties mainly used
cognitive rehearsal strategies, while the organisational and elaboration
strategies were used only with the aid of the available social resources. The
results also show that metacognitive strategies with regard to planning,
assessment, and self-regulation were not yet fully developed in the participants
with learning difficulties. Two of the three younger adolescents with
learning difficulties show several signs of defensive pessimism and learned
helplessness. All the adolescents participating in this case study received
support and help in their home environments and developed suitable selfencouragement
and self-rewarding strategies through perceptions of their
own success in their free-time activities. The participating teachers did
not fully identify the strong areas and performance factors in the younger
adolescents, both with and without learning difficulties. The results obtained
from this case study might contribute to developing more efficient
special-educational intervention approaches.
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