Models of Self-regulated Learning: A review

Questions connected with the regulation of one's own cognitive processes attract increasing numbers of researchers in psychology, as evidenced by the several different models of self-regulation that have been developed over the past two decades. The aim of this article was to present and compare the latest models of self-regulated learning (SRL), including those by Boekaerts, Borkowski, Pintrich, Winne and Zimmerman. The models were compared on four criteria (i.e. background theories, definitions of SRL, components included in the models and empirical work). The results show that theoretical background is an important differentiating feature. The two models that resembled each other more than any other two models (i.e. Pintrich and Zimmerman) were inspired by the same background theory (i.e. social cognitive theory). On the other hand, the models that differed most from the other models (i.e. Borkowski and Winne) were also theoretically the farthest removed ones.