Individual, parental and teacher support factors of self-regulation in Japanese students

Purpose: Factors of self-regulated learning processes, namely teacher autonomy support/parental autonomy support, and three types of individual goal-orientations (i.e. mastery goal, performance-approach goal, performance-avoidance goal) were examined. Methodology: A questionnaire was used to survey 212 Japanese undergraduate students who were enrolled in English language courses. Findings: Teacher and parental autonomy support were positive predictors of intrinsic value, which in turn positively predicted metacognitive and cognitive strategy use. Performance-avoidance goal disposition was a positive predictor of metacognitive strategy use; however, it was a negative predictor of cognitive strategy use. Mastery goal disposition was a positive predictor of intrinsic value, which in turn positively predicted meta-cognitive and cognitive strategy use. Individual factors (i.e. goal orientations) were predictors of self-regulated learning processes and support from parents and teachers were required to sustain these self-regulated processes. Value: Intrinsic value appears to be a key mediator in predicting meta-cognitive and cognitive strategy use for individual factors, parental autonomy support and teacher autonomy support factors. Findings from this research provide a better understanding of self-regulated learning processes in the Japanese language learning context.