Personal values and college GPA: the mediation via self-regulated learning

Although studies on non-cognitive predictors of academic performance have burgeoned during the past decades, the influence of personal values remains largely unexplored. A few empirical studies in middle and high school students indicated conservative values prioritizing rule binding and maintaining stability predicted academic performances, but it has not been extensively explored how these personal values affect academic performances. In this study, to fill the theoretical and empirical gap in the literature, the effect of personal values on academic outcomes via self-regulated learning strategies was examined in college students. Correlational analysis indicated that conformity, security, and benevolence values were significantly associated with semester GPA. Among the mediating self-regulated learning strategies, elaboration, effort regulation, time and study environment, and metacognitive self-regulation skills predicted semester GPA. Security and benevolence established partial mediational models with self-regulated learning strategies in the substantive mediational analyses. The findings imply that students with socially focused values achieve higher academic performance through engaging contextualized behavioral and cognitive effort and self-monitoring of their learning progress.