ENGINEERING STUDENTS’ SELF-REGULATION COMPETENCIES – THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERCEPTIONS AND SUMMATIVE SCORES

There is no doubt about the importance of lifelong learning (LLL) and the responsibility that Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) hold to guide and support students in the development of LLL competencies so that each graduate is prepared for a life full of learning. With self-regulation considered as a core and malleable competency for LLL, HEIs can develop interventions to support the development of students’ self-regulation competencies. It is, however, of great importance to determine the effectiveness of these interventions. Therefore this study, focusing on first and second-year engineering students, aims to gain insight in the use of and relation between two methods for measuring self-regulation competencies: a validated self-reported questionnaire on self-regulation competencies and summative scores on students’ self-reflection report. Students’ mean scores on the questionnaire were compared across the different summative scores (A/B/C score Critical and A/B/C score Concrete) and across the year of study programme (first year and second year) by use of ANOVA and t-tests. Few significant differences are found, but two general trends are interesting to examine further: (1) Students with the highest summative scores do not report the highest self-regulation competencies, and (2) Second-year students have overall a higher self-reported level of self-regulation competencies in comparison with first-year students and a higher percentage of second-year students obtain the highest summative score on their self-reflection. In the next steps of this research, interventions focusing on self-regulation will be developed and implemented in the curriculum. When determining the effectiveness of these interventions both measurement methods will be used. However, statistical methods will be explored to control for the Dunning-Kruger effect, seen in the self-reported questionnaires and students’ possible natural growth in self-regulation competencies will be taken into account as well.