EFFECT OF SOLICITED TEACHER FEEDBACK ON SELF-REGULATED LEARNING OF MALAYSIAN UNDERGRADUATES

Abstract

Developing self-regulated learners is one of the mandates of modern education. Though a general trend of decreasing students’ perceived self-regulation from primary to secondary school has been recorded internationally, and university students do not report having optimal self-regulated learning. Teacher feedback is shown to be an inherent catalyst of students’ self-regulated learning. However, the role of more tailored, targeted feedback towards specific challenges faced by students in facilitating students’ self-regulated learning are still under-researched. As such, the current study aimed to examine the role of solicited teacher feedback in facilitating students’ self-regulated learning. A randomized pretest-posttest experimental design was employed in this study. A total of 121 psychology undergraduates from a Malaysian private university received either solicited teacher feedback or unsolicited teacher feedback over the course of an academic semester. The students’ self-regulated learning was measured using the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). The results revealed that participants in the solicited teacher feedback condition reported a significantly greater level of metacognitive and behavioral components of self-regulated learning as compared to participants in the unsolicited teacher feedback condition, after controlling for pre-manipulation level of self-regulated learning. However, there was no significant difference in the motivational component of self-regulated learning between students who are given solicited teacher feedback and students who are given unsolicited teacher feedback, after controlling for pre-manipulation level of self-regulated learning. The findings of the study attest to the importance of solicited teacher feedback in enhancing students’ self-regulated learning and provide unique insights on the role of teacher feedback in cultivating students’ self-regulated learning in the Malaysian university context.