Over three decades, there have been considerable changes in the nature of instruction as a result of ongoing changes in knowledge and skills needed both in school settings and workplaces (Heo, 1999). Currently, learning is regarded as “an active, constructive process whereby learners set goals for their learning and then attempt to monitor, regulate, and control their cognition, motivation, and behavior, guided and constrained by their learning goals and the contextual features in the environment” (Pintrich, 2005, p.453). Therefore, for successful learning in school and beyond, individuals are required to become more self-regulated (Boekaerts, 1999). Self-regulated learning (SRL) is a critical factor in analyzing students’ academic learning and achievement, mostly because it addresses “the question of how students become masters of their own learning processes” (Zimmerman, 2001, p.1). This proactive view of learning has profound instructional implications for a variety of educational settings at all levels of the educational system. For example, it covers most of the aspects in the field of reading comprehension (Souvignier & Mokhlesgerami, 2006). Reading comprehension is a powerful approach that helps student to improve understanding and acquire new knowledge (Zimmerman & Schunk, 2001). Successful reading comprehension depends on an effective use of self-regulated learning strategies, such as making inferences, identifying the main ideas, summarizing, predicting, and monitoring (Byrnes, 2008). In this study, we examined how a learner self-regulates her learning while reading an academic text. There are a number of SRL models that offer alternative perspectives about how learning is self-regulated (Boekaerts, 1999; Pintrich, 2000; Winne & Hadwin, 1998; Zimmerman, 1990). In particular, we used Pintrich’s model, which synthesizes the common frameworks of previous models, to find out whether the model was apparent in the learner’s reading comprehension process. In this model, self-regulatory processes are categorized into four phases (forethought, monitoring, control, and reflection), and each phase is divided into four areas of self-regulation (cognitive, motivational, behavioral, and contextual). In general, these phases can occur simultaneously forming multiple interactions among the different components. In an era in which student self-regulation often seems alarmingly absent (Zimmerman & Schunk, 2001), research studies that can explain how learners self-regulate their academic learning and offer direction to educators into the processes of SRL may be of particular merit. This type of studies can improve instructional quality in general, and can be conductive both in European contexts as well as in international context.

We collected data through observation, videotaping, and semi structured interview. Our participant was a doctoral student studying in elementary teacher education program. We used purposeful sampling method to obtain in-depth understanding about how an experienced learner self regulates and uses different kinds of strategies while reading an academic text. We prepared a checklist that reflects the most critical points in Pintrich’s model. During the observation, we used a think-aloud approach to follow her self-regulation process, and filled the checklists individually. The observation took about three hours and was recorded in a video type. After she finished reading the text, we made an interview revealing the points in the checklist. The interview lasted about twenty minutes. For data analysis, we transcribed the video tape, and analyzed the process using Pintrich’s model. Then, we triangulated the data obtained from the checklist, transcription, and interview. The data produced generally convergent conclusions.

Before she started reading the text, she checked the number of pages and predicted how much time to spent; read the title and remembered several prior concepts; and found the topic interesting. While reading, she used traces and wrote notes near paragraphs; regularly self-questioned herself; and spend time for understanding the concepts. Finally, she made an overall summarization and critiques about the text. In conclusion, all the phases in the model were apparent in our participant’s reading comprehension task. However, it was difficult to decide on which strategies were belonging to monitoring or control phases. Pintrich (2005) also states that much of the empirical work does not find much separation on these phases. This might be because these phases are reflecting learner’s thinking process. In fact, our aim was not to generalize self-regulatory processes for any learning task, but to have an overall idea about how a learner self-regulates.