Why is externally - facilitated regulated learning more effective than self - regulated learning with hypermedia ?

We examined how self-regulated learning (SRL) and externally-facilitated selfregulated learning (ERL) differentially affected adolescents’ learning about the circulatory system while using hypermedia. A total of 128 middle-school and high school students with little prior knowledge of the topic were randomly assigned to either 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-posttest shifts in students’ mental models and declarative knowledge measures) with process (think-aloud protocols) data to examine the effectiveness of selfversus externally-facilitated regulated learning. Findings revealed that learners in the ERL condition gained statistically significantly more declarative knowledge and that a greater number of participants in this condition displayed a more advanced mental model on the posttest. Verbal protocol data indicated that learners in the ERL condition regulated their learning by activating prior knowledge, engaging in several monitoring activities, deploying several effective strategies, and engaging in adaptive helpseeking. By contrast, learners in the SRL condition used ineffective strategies and engaged An earlier version of this paper was presented at the international conference of Artificial Intelligence in Education (AI-Ed 2005), Amsterdam, The Netherlands (August, 2005). R. Azevedo (&) Department of Psychology and Institute for Intelligent Systems, University of Memphis, 400 Innovation Drive, Memphis, TN 38152, USA e-mail: [email protected] D. C. Moos Gustavus Adolphus College, Saint Peter, USA J. A. Greene University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA F. I. Winters University of Maryland, College Park, USA J. G. Cromley Temple University, Philadelphia, USA 123 Education Tech Research Dev (2008) 56:45–72 DOI 10.1007/s11423-007-9067-0