Self-Regulated Learning Interventions for Pre-service Teachers: a Systematic Review

Self-regulated learning (SRL) is a key competence for pre-service teachers to develop, both for their own activities as learners and for their future activities as teachers. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how pre-service teachers can be supported in acquiring SRL competence in their initial training. To reach this aim, we conducted a systematic review of SRL interventions for pre-service teachers. Sixty-six intervention studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria. We explored three aspects of those SRL interventions, and how they moderate the interventions' effectiveness: (1) the theoretical and practical underpinnings of SRL, (2) whether the intervention aimed to promote SRL learning and/or teaching of SRL, and (3) the intervention's pedagogical characteristics and content related to the SRL professional competences. We found that the most effective SRL interventions (1) focused the training on one or two SRL areas (especially cognition and metacognition); (2) when targeted both, SRL learning and teaching of SRL, pre-service teachers' SRL skills improved as well as their pedagogical skills; and (3) addressed direct and implicit SRL instruction, inside which self-assessment of learning and teaching practices appear as an effective pedagogical method. We derive implications from our findings for designing effective SRL interventions for prospective teachers.