Young children's emergent self-regulated learning skills in a primary science investigation

Research on self-regulation of children's learning is seldom set at lower primary school levels.  Indeed, there are conflicting views about the ability of young childen to self-regulate their learning.  We have found that, with appropriate teacher support, and the use of purposefully constructed learning materials, Year 1, 2, and 3 children were able to demonstrate what we consider to be foundational aspects of self-regulated learning.  This paper reports on an exploratory study of a sequence of four lessons in one Year 1-3 class.

Paper presented at the New Zealand Association for Research in Education (NZARE) conference, Wellington,  24-26 November 2004.