Investigating the role of Educational Groups and Academic Degrees at Research Self-Regulation of postgraduate Students

Cycle of scientific research related to self-regulation skills and participation in research requires planning, monitoring and reflection. The aim of this study was to investigate of research self-regulation of post graduate students. The research method was descriptive. The statistical population included all postgraduate students of Ferdowsi university of Mashhad. 275 students were selected from the mentioned population by quota sampling method and answered the research self-regulated questionnaire. The questionnaire was developed based on Zimmermann's self-regulation theory (2002) and its content validity was confirmed by the expert judgment of six psychology and education scholars. Principal component analysis with varimax rotation revealed four factors that explained 41.90% of the variance of the research self-regulation questionnaire. Cronbach's alpha coefficients used for research self-regulation questionnaire (0.93) and motivational beliefs (0.87), research resource management (0.84), Monitoring and Self-reflection (0.84), and Forethought (0.83).The results showed that there was no significant difference between the degrees of education in self-regulation, but there was a significant difference between educational groups that the mean of motivational beliefs and resource management factors of the students of the humanities was higher than the non-human sciences students. Therefore, according to the findings of this study, improving student performance requires teachers’ attention and training, academic curriculum to research self-regulation.