Self-Regulation of Learning and Academic Delay of Gratification: Gender and Ethnic Differences Among College Students

Self-regulated learners engage in self-generated thoughts, actions, and feelings while pursuing academic goals. The most successful learners use appropriate learning strategies and maintain high levels of motivation. Few studies on the self-regulation of learning have examined individual differences such as gender and ethnicity among college students. The study examined gender and ethnic differences in the relationships between academic performance, self-regulation, motivation, and delay of gratification using correlational analyses. The study also investigated whether students from diverse gender and ethnic groups differed with regard to their use of self-regulation, motivation, delay of gratification, and academic performance using multivariate and univariate analyses of variance. Participants were 364 college students enrolled in introductory psychology courses in a public university. The results suggested the presence of gender and ethnic differences in motivation, use of cognitive strategies, and delay of gratification, and use of self-regulation of learning is ambiguous. The reported self-efficacy beliefs of all groups of students were moderately to highly correlated with grades. The results also suggested that, independent of gender or ethnicity, the student's evaluation of the importance and usefulness of the course task was related to achievement in the class. There were differences in the relationships between delay of gratification and the use of cognitive strategies, between ethnicity and gender groups. In examining the mean differences of each group, there was a significant difference between course grades, with Caucasian students obtaining higher grades. In addition, minority males also reported significantly lower self-confidence in their ability to perform academic tasks.