Identifying computer science self-regulated learning strategies

Abstract

Computer Science students struggle to develop fundamental programming skills and software development processes. Crucial to successful mastery is the development of discipline specific cognitive and metacognitive skills, including self-regulation. We can assist our students in the process of reflection and self-regulation by identifying and articulating successful self-regulated learning strategies for specific discipline contexts. However, in order to do so, we must develop an understanding of those discipline-specific strategies that are successful and can be readily adopted by students. In this paper, we analyse student reflections from an introductory software development course, identifying the usage of self-regulated learning strategies that are either specific to the software development domain, or articulated in that context. This study assists in the understanding of how Computer Science students develop learning skill within the discipline, and provides examples to guide the development of scaffolding activities to assist learning development.