Parental scaffolding and children’s motivational resources as predictors of Chinese preschool children’s self-regulated learning

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• Heyi Zhang, PhD student, Faculty of Education
• Wednesday 15 October 2014, 13:00-14:00
• Room 2S5, Donald McIntyre Building, Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 8PQ.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Simin Zeng.

Self-regulated learning (SRL) refers to the learning process guided by the use of cognitive, metacognitive and motivational strategies. As learning begins far before children enter school, it is important to examine preschool children’s SRL abilities which are essential to later academic achievement. Early studies have emphasized the importance of parental scaffolding to children’s SRL . Additionally, Deci and Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory (SDT) highlights that the satisfaction of the three psychological needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness facilitates individual’s intrinsic motivation for adopting SRL strategies. The three needs are therefore viewed as motivational resources necessary for mastery of SRL skills. In the literature, much of the work has focused on either the role of parental or motivational factors in children’s SRL , while very few studies have drawn these two lines of work together. Moreover, the predominance of Caucasian participants in this field warrants further studies in different cultural contexts.

To fill the gaps in the literature, the current study aimed to examine the relationships between parental scaffolding, children’s motivational resources and preschool children’s SRL in the Chinese context from a multidimensional perspective, exploring various dimensions of parental and motivational factors and how they contribute to different indicators of SRL . The current study involved 128 Chinese family dyads consisting of children aged 60 to 78 months and their parents. The primary research method of the study was the behavioural observation approach. Children were asked to complete a set of problem-solving tasks both with their parents and independently. In the seminar, the research background, research questions, method and results from a pilot study will be presented.

This talk is part of the Faculty of Education Research Students' Association (FERSA) Lunchtime Seminars 2014-2015 series.

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• Faculty of Education Research Students' Association (FERSA) Lunchtime Seminars 2014-2015
• Room 2S5, Donald McIntyre Building, Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 8PQ

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