The Factors That Affect the Preservice Mathematics Teachers' Self Regulation Strategies

Abstract

The process whereby an individual regulates his/her own learning objectives, controls his/her own emotions and thoughts and develops strategies is described as self-regulation process (Zimmerman, 1990). Within this process the individual adapts to his/her environment and develops appropriate strategies. The purpose of this study is to determine pre-service elementary mathematics teachers' opinions regarding factors affecting their self-regulation strategies as they study courses related to mathematics education that have pedagogical contents. Within the scope of the study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with two pre-service teachers enrolled in the elementary mathematics education department in a large scale university in Ankara. Results revealed that the two pre-service teachers consider that the amount of time available for studying, the characteristics of the instructor (e.g., his/her attitude, his/her expectations from the students) and requirements of the course play important roles in determining what kinds of strategies they use when studying for the course. (c) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.