The effects of self-monitoring on students' course performance, use of learning strategies, attitude, self-judgment ability, and knowledge representation

Self-monitoring, defined as deliberate attention to some aspect of one's behavior, is considered to be an important self-regulatory process in learning. In the present experiment, 72 graduate students in a statistics class were assigned to a self-monitoring group, an instructor-monitoring group, or a control group to investigate the effects of self-monitoring on students' learning strategies, motivation, knowledge representation, self-judgment ability, and course performance. During the course, the self-monitoring group recorded the frequency and intensity of their various learning activities, the instructor-monitoring group evaluated the instructor's teaching, and the control group took the course without any treatment. The self-monitoring group performed better than the other two groups on course tests, used more self-regulated learning strategies, and developed better knowledge representation of the course content. Psychological processes are suggested through which self-monitoring increases students' learning and provides a prototype of a self-monitoring protocol that has potential for improving students' course performance.