The worldwide emphasis on vocational training is increasing as a means to overcome social and economic challenges and, on the other hand, as a way to integrate young people into work and make them skilled workers (Evans, 2020). The mainstream system, which has been seen as the gold standard for vocational training, is the dual system, a combination of vocational education and training (Hoffman & Schwartz, 2015). It is important to find out how young adults, who are entering professional life and starting their business careers, are facing these new challenges. In the dual system, vocational school has the task of preparing students for these challenges. Teachers teach the methods of self-regulated learning and support the vocational students in their learning processes. Thus, it is crucial to know which approaches are effective in helping vocational students become self-regulated learners.

A key challenge in the research of vocational training is its very complexity: while general education is well-defined, the phrase “vocational training” has been used for multiple distinct types of training, such as school-based vocational training, apprenticeship systems, further education, and lifelong learning (Evans, 2020). The focus lies on the apprenticeship system, and especially on the dual system. In addition to the challenges with the concept of vocational school, there is the problem of an unclear definition of the term self-regulated learning (Baumert et al., 2007). There is agreement in the research community that self-regulated learning is an important concept and central task, integral to helping students become independent and self-regulated learners. Zimmerman (2000) describes self-regulated learning with a social cognitive process model in which three phases are distinguished: forethought, performance or volitional control, and self-reflection. There is an interdependence between academic achievement and self-regulated learning (Zimmerman, 1990). Learners achieve academic success when they use metacognitive, motivational, and behavioral strategies in all three phases of a learning cycle (Zimmerman, 1990, 2008). Less academically successful learners lack “will and skill” (Zimmerman, 1990, p. 6). Therefore, it is important to assess the learning environments and teacher instructions which may help those students to develop and use strategies in all three self-regulated learning phases.

Vocational students are on the move of entering professional life and are facing new challenges, Schools can teach the methods for self-regulated learning and support the vocational students in their processes. Therefore, the following question is of interest: What are the characteristics of interventions promoting self-regulated learning at vocational school level?

With the research question it is possible to both analyze which interventions support self-regulated learning and are effective for self-regulation as well as to identify the limitations of those approaches. The question will also address in which scenarios self-regulated learning at vocational school level is beneficial. More specifically, which methods or approaches work for which vocational students? In this way the research question connects the beneficial aspects to the limiting aspects, and a holistic approach will be adapted to address both aspects.

After scanning the literature on the topic areas, self-regulated learning, vocational school, regu-lation type and interventions, the research question was formulated along the guidelines of the PICo system for qualitative studies (Miller & Forrest, 2001; Murdoch University, 2020). The starting point of the PICo system lies in its name which is also an acronym; through the defini-tion of study Population or Problem, Interest, Context, the scaffolding for the review becomes clear. Deciding on the scope of your review is equally necessary, a broad scope necessitates a different level of detail and implies a different goal than a more-focused scope (Bano, 2020). A broad scope was chosen to explore generalizability and compare the effectiveness of different interventions. In order to answer the research question, a systematic literature search was carried out. Accord-ingly, a search strategy from the literature was adopted. There are two related but yet different modes of searching: scoping search and the main search for evidence (Boland et al., 2017). In a first step, a preliminary literature search, a scoping search, was made. The results of this scop-ing search gave an idea about the published literature and information which are available in the topic area The methodology consisted of a systematic review of relevant studies. A clear search strategy, formulation of inclusion and exclusion criteria, and a screening and selection process helped to identify possible intervention studies for this review. Data extraction, a quality as-sessment, and synthesis of the results followed.

Nine of the eleven included studies reported positive effects of their interventions promoting self-regulated learning. The review question, what are the characteristics of interventions pro-moting self-regulated learning at vocational school level, can be answered by saying that there is low to moderate evidence that collaborative web-based learning approaches which focus on problem-solving and error analysis, as well as learning environments which focus on student autonomy, are successful ways to increase self-regulated learning. One problem of the intervention studies was minimal similarity of the outcome measure, differ-ent effect sizes and the quality of evidence between the studies. This made comparing and draw-ing conclusions from the papers overall difficult. A comparison and evaluation of different self-regulated learning approaches at the vocational school level seems only plausible if there is a common criteria by which outcomes are measured, which would put into context the different vocational education systems around the world. Interestingly, in the synthesis of the results promotion of self-regulated learning skills was more of a means to an end than the actual core of the intervention studies. Although the concept of self-regulated learning was applied in various forms, the common thread was the primary focus on the outcomes. In this way, this systematic review can be seen as both evidence and a critique of the current literature on self-regulated learning. Suggestions for future research would involve the assump-tion of homogeneity within the papers or a different methodological approach in order to meet the current heterogeneity of the interventional studies about self-regulated learning at vocational school level.

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