Students in tertiary education are often considered competent and self-regulating learners. However, it has been shown, that under demanding circumstances, e.g., in distance-education, they are less likely to apply metacognitive strategies of self-regulated learning (SRL) (e.g. Broadbent & Poon, 2015), instead resorting to superficial cognitive strategies (e.g., Karpicke et al. 2009; Enders & Wienzierl, 2017; Dunlosky et al., 2017). Distance-learning settings pose particularly high demands on the self-regulation of learning, while at the same time minimizing instructors’ options to offer guidance. Is it possible to support students in their learning process with a short intervention in form of an e-learning course, specifically targeting the use of effective strategies of self-regulated learning? While in laboratory settings, interventions in the form of prompts have been shown to improve students’ learning competence, (e.g., Sonnenberg & Bannert (2015), little is known about supporting students in ecological-valid distance-settings. First studies find support that a promotion of SRL strategies online is promising (e.g., Endres at al., 2021). We designed a short e-learning course teaching students strategies of self-regulated learning and providing declarative and conditional knowledge on SRL strategies in order to promote the application of SRL-strategies in distance settings. E-learning courses have the following benefits: 1. easy administration (the same course can be administered repeatedly), 2. cross-discipline relevance (scientifically informed study behavior benefits students and educators from all fields), 3. adaptability to other languages given the universal context (can be use on large international scale), 4. an alleviation of the teachers’ duties.

The e-learning course, presented in Moodle, contains three phases (cf. Biwer et al.2020): 1. Raising awareness regarding effectiveness of learning-techniques, 2. Reflection on own learning, 3. Planning, detailed study-plan). The control-condition was a psychoeducational intervention on sleep-hygiene, following the same pattern: 1. Raising awareness on sleep habits, 2. Reflection on own sleeping habits, 3. Planning sleep-routine. Participants (N=85) were randomly assigned to an experimental condition (n=36) or control condition A or B. The experimental group completed a pretest, the SRL-e-learning-course and a post-test. Participants in control-condition A (n=23) completed a pre-test, a psychoeducational e-learning course on sleep-hygiene and a post-test. Participants in control group B (n=26) only completed the sleep-hygiene course and post-test. The pre- and post-test assessed knowledge on effectiveness of SRL strategies, self-reported (planned and actual) application of cognitive and metacognitive strategies during exam preparation, motivation and effort. Grades were collected from the final exam. Recruiting occurred during an introductory course for primary school teacher students in Germany during covid-19-restrictions. Students attended streamed live-lectures, were provided asynchronous screencasts, access to study material in Moodle and tutor lessons. At the end of the term, students took a graded exam. To assess the effects of the intervention, we first compared final grade as an indicator of learning outcome between the groups. We then investigated the effect of the intervention on the self-reported use of self-regulation strategies ‒ as an indicator of learning process using items of the LIST-questionnaire (Schiefele & Wild, 1994) (German version of the MSQL). We investigated effectiveness ratings as an indicator of declarative knowledge (Dunlosky et al., 2013). Our analysis relies on a difference-in-differences-design (DiD) to estimate the effects of the intervention. In DiD, changes due to external factors are controlled by the difference in the reported changes of the control-groups. To avoid prompting effects of the pre-test, we constructed the difference between the post-test of control-group B and the pre-test of control-group A. Subtracting this difference from the difference of the reports of the experimental-group allows to eliminate changes due to external factors, identifying the causal effect of the intervention on the experimental-group. In our model (1) Ƴ=β0+β1∗Treatment+β2∗Post+β3∗Treatment∗Post(+Ɛ) Treatment and Post are dummy variables indicating whether the observation belongs to an individual in the treatment-group (treatment=1) or in the control-group (treatment=0) and whether the observation is after the treatment (post= 1) or before (post=0); the coefficient β3 corresponds to the causal effect of the intervention.

Regarding the learning outcome, there were no significant differences in exam grades between the experimental group and control group B (MEG=2.93, SDEG=1.09; M CGB=2.43, SD CGB=1.04; t (30) =-1.24, p=.52). The effect size of the difference is d=– 0.47). We next present the results of the DiD analysis, identifiying the causal effect of our intervention on strategy use (1) and effectiveness ratings (2). In this extended summary, we focus on the cases where the intervention yielded statistically significant effects (standardized regression coefficient β3): 1. Application of SRL strategies a. Metacognitive control: • I critically checked, what I have studied: β= 0.38, SE .0.39 t=2.05 F(3/90)=1,95, p 0.44 • I asked myself questions about the material to check that I understood everything: β=0.35, SE 0.42, t=1.89, F(3/90)=1.48, p=0.62 • In order to identify gaps in my knowledge, I have recapped the most important contents without using my documents for help: β 0.40, SE = 0.46, t=2,17, F(3/90)=1,59, p=0.03 b. Cognitive rehearsal: • I memorized the subject matter as much as possible using lecture notes or other recordings: β = -0.36, SE = 0.48, t=-1.95, F(3/90)=2.23, p=0,06 • I have memorized rules, technical terms or formulas: β = -0.37, SE = 0.43, t=-2,15, F(3/90)=6.23, p=0,04. 2. Effectiveness ratings: a. Metacognitive control: • To identify gaps in knowledge: recapitulate the most important content without taking documents for help: β=0.52, SE=0.29, t=-2.89, F(3/90)=4.18, p=0.01 b. cognitive rehearsal • To read through the texts relevant to the exam again and again: β=-0.33, SE=0.32, t=-1.85, F(3/90)=4.65, p=0.07 • Memorize the subject matter using index cards or own notes as much as possible: β=-0.36, SE= 0.38, t=-1.95, F(3/90)=1.72, p=0.05

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