A Comparative Psychometric Study of Self-Regulated Learning Strategies across Some Academic Courses

Abstract

This study aimed at investigating whether students’ usage of self-regulated learning strategies depends on the course or whether these strategies represent general academic skills that students can use to learn any course. A general version and three course-specific versions of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) were administered to a sample of 425 tenth graders in Sultanate of Oman. The general version of the MSLQ described self-regulated learning strategies as course-free general academic learning strategies, whereas the course-specific versions described these strategies within the context of mathematics, social studies, and Arabic. The results showed that (1) self-regulated learning strategies represented course-free general academic skills, (2) task value and test anxiety latent means were higher in mathematics than in social studies and Arabic, but these means did not differ between social studies and Arabic (3) the dimensions of the general and the course-specific versions of the MSLQ correlated similarly with achievement in mathematics, social studies, and Arabic except for self-efficacy, wherein the correlation coefficients between self-efficacy and achievement in these courses were higher when self-efficacy was measured via a course-specific measure rather than a general measure that assesses self-efficacy as a general academic skill.

Keywords

• Motivated strategies for learning questionnaire (MSLQ), self-regulated learning, academic achievement, confirmatory factor analysis.