Culture and self-regulated learning: exploring cultural influences on Chinese international and Canadian domestic undergraduate students’ engagement in self-regulated learning
Date
2021-01-13
Authors
Wu, Meng Qi
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Abstract
Culture, as an advanced form of social life, is internalized within each individual as an essential component of learning, socializing, and developing (Baumeister, 2011; Greenfield et al., 2003). Self-regulated learning (SRL), as demonstrated in the literature, is essential for students’ academic success, where self-regulated learners strategically and metacognitively plan, monitor, and adapt their learning processes to achieve their goals in learning (Winne & Hadwin, 1998; Winne, 1995; Zimmerman, 2002). Because SRL theories significantly emphasize the importance of social contexts, culture is likely to influence how individuals develop and gain SRL competency. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of cross-cultural studies of SRL research; thus, this study aimed to examine and compare Chinese international and Canadian domestic students’ self-reported engagement in SRL processes and their academic performance. To achieve this purpose, we adopted an emic approach by evaluating Winne and Hadwin’s (1998) model of SRL and systematically comparing it with Chinese conceptualization of learning (e.g., Confucianism). Then, we used an advanced statistical method to investigate the measurement invariance of the Regulation of Learning Questionnaire (RLQ) designed to capture SRL as dynamic processes unfolding over time for Chinese and Canadian groups. Our findings supported configural and metric invariances across Chinese and Canadian cultural groups. Based on the evidence of partial scalar invariance, we also identified single items that contributed to scalar non-invariance. This study demonstrated the significance of examining the measurement invariance across cultures, which warrants comparability in cross-cultural comparisons, and contributed greatly to the current literature on the relation between culture and SRL.
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Keywords
Self-regulated learning, culture, measurement invariance, Chinese notion of learning, academic engagement