New Perspectives in Science Education

In process of promoting self-regulated learning, the role of teachers is crucial one. Self-regulation could be described as the ability of an individual to change his own behaviour. Because of this ability it is possible to change our behaviour towards certain requirements. At the same time, self-regulation is understood as a vast ability of man to have a control over their inner state, processes and behaviour.  Teachers with well-developed self-regulation skills are better at adapting their learning approach to their own skills and become more effective in the educational process. That is the main reason, why we have decided to focus on the self-regulation process of students of pedagogy studying at universities in the Slovak Republic. As our goal in this article is to look at and investigate the self-regulation abilities of university students, we chosen to use the questionnaire developed at Center for Research on Learning at University of Kansas, which is known as the Self-Regulation Questionnaire. The Self-Regulation Questionnaire is designed to measure a student’s proficiency in the four essential components of self-regulation, which are Plan (for what you want to accomplish), Monitor (progress and interference regarding your goal), Control (be able to change by implementing specific strategies when things are not going as planned), Reflect (on what worked and what you can do better next time). As teachers often work in an environment which is tightly controlled and their own self-regulation abilities are often tested, therefore they need to possess strong determination and adequate self-reflection.

Keywords: control, self-regulation, The Self-Regulation Questionnaire, students, teachers;