PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS’ SELF-REGULATED LEARNING SKILLS

Abstract

Self-regulated learning (SRL) skills are very important in problem solving. It is important to strat to develop these skills from the first years of school. Thus, it is essential that primary school teachers master self-regulated learning skills and they know how to develop these skills in their pupils. In this article, we present the results of a research made among 31 primary school teachers regarding their self-regulated learning skills. The tool is a questionnaire developed specially for this purpose. This questionnaire has 19 questions, 16 items are related with the topic of the research and they are affirmations, which have to be evaluated by the respondents on a 5-point Likert scale: from 1- not at all typical for me to 5 – totally describes me. We have formulated the affirmations based on the theory of SRL. The results show that the respondents’ problem analyzing and help-seeking skills are low, but their self-monitoring skills are good. When analyzing the problem, only one third of the respondents rephrases the text of it and makes drawings for a deeper understanding. The respondents has good self-monitoring skills, almost two third of them check if the solution is correct and three quarters of the teachers check if they have used all the data of the problem. The respondents help-seeking abilities are low, only less then half of them are searching for similar worked examples and one third of them ask for the help of a colleague in case of an insuccesful problem solving. These results emphasize the necessity of developing primary school teachers’ problem solving and self-regulated learning skills.