Oh The Places You'll Go: The Assessment of Self-Regulation in Grade 1 to 3 Classrooms

Abstract

In the 21st century a greater emphasis has been placed on learning skills, such as self-regulation, to help prepare students for their academic future and time beyond school. Research has indicated a predictive relationship between self-regulation and academic success. As a result, fostering self-regulation has been deemed important in the classroom and is a selected learning skill in the Ontario public school system. In order to foster self-regulation, it is important to explore the assessment of self-regulation. The purpose of this study is to explore how teachers use assessment in the primary classroom to foster, monitor, and track the development of self-regulation. Six Ontario primary teachers (both working in public and private schools) were purposefully selected for the study. This study employed a methodology of interpretive phenomenology, which allowed the participating teachers to share their experience of self-regulation assessment through semi-structured interviews and artifacts. Thematic analysis of the data revealed four themes: self-regulation assessment in primary classrooms, methods for collecting evidence of students’ self-regulation development, assessment to support and promote self-regulation skills, and self-regulation assessment challenges. While there is greater emphasis on learning skills and general agreement about their importance both in terms of academic success and success beyond school, there is a lack of resources and understanding of how to assess these skills. Findings from this study provide insight into various challenges that teachers face in supporting and assessing self-regulation skills.