The purpose of the study was to investigate whether metacognitive self-regulation, self-efficacy for learning and performance, and critical thinking could be identified as predictors of student academic success and course retention among community college students enrolled in online, telecourses, and traditional Fundamentals of Speech (public speaking) courses. The study was conducted during the Fall 2005 semester at Valencia Community College (VCC). Data for this study were collected from participating students enrolled in either one of the two online, two telecourse, and two traditional face-to-face public speaking courses chosen for analysis. Fifty-seven participants answered Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, and McKeachie (1991) Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). Quantitative statistical analysis was used to investigate the impact of metacognitive self-regulation, self-efficacy for learning and performance, and critical thinking on academic success and course completion in the three delivery modes. Data were analyzed and found self-efficacy was a significant predictor of final course grade. There was a significant relationship between critical thinking and self-regulation but not final grade. Self-efficacy was a predictor of informative speech grade however; self-regulation and critical thinking were not. No variable was a significant predictor of course completion which may be due to the small sample size among students who took the survey and did not complete the course. There was no statistically significant difference found with self-efficacy, self-regulation, critical thinking and course type (online, telecourse, traditional).

America’s elementary-aged children are struggling in school. Teachers and parents report that children are demonstrating difficulty attending to and staying engaged with instructional activities in classrooms nationwide. As a result, teachers must manage children's dysregulation as it may impact their immediate learning abilities and produce further downstream consequences in the K-12 environment. These elementary-aged children are often referred to school-based occupational therapy. The referrals indicate social-emotional learning (SEL) deficits. These social-emotional processes and the child’s learning are negatively impacted by increased anxiety. Evidence supports these findings. In fact, the current literature on the topic reveals multiple contributing factors including sensory functions that link body cues to emotions. This doctoral project provides an overview of My Body Feelings (My BF) curriculum. This project details the curriculum’s development, and the specific connection of school-based interventions. My BF is informed by three educational theories including Sociocultural Theory, Social Cognitive Theory, and the Theory of Constructed Emotions. Curriculum materials and lessons are organized as well as structured for the instructors using the Understanding by Design Framework. The program incorporates current evidence-based intervention strategies in 21 accessible 30-minute sessions complete with take home Exit Tickets. The result is an educational curriculum which directly addresses decreased self-regulation in children. The skills developed in the program will drive situation-specific coping skill development in children in grade levels 1-5. The anticipated outcome is improved emotional health and well-being of today's elementary-aged children impacting their important occupational role of student.

Despite the recent advances in the field of cognitive neuroscience and the role of interoception in promoting behavioral regulation, few occupational therapy intervention practices have adopted the concept into their approach. This paper explores the impact of school-based occupational therapy intervention based on mindfulness and interoceptive awareness in promoting behavioral regulation among 3rd–5th-grade children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). The intervention program, titled Mind-Body Integration program (MBI), is delivered to a special education classroom via weekly 30-minute sessions for 26 weeks during the school year. The author completed a pilot study of the program in two elementary school special education classrooms. Twenty-three students with NDDs participated in the study and 17 completed the data collection. Data was collected on emotional and behavioral regulation as well as interoceptive bodily awareness. Assessment measures included Behavior Rating of Executive Functions, 2nd edition (BRIEF-2); Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness- youth (MAIA); and a teacher survey. The results demonstrate significant positive changes in student reported attentional regulation, emotional awareness, body listening, and self-regulation. There were no significant negative changes reported on the parent-reported BRIEF-2. However, the teacher survey indicated significant negative changes in behavioral regulation. Overall, the pilot study was found to be feasible to implement and cost-effective. These findings suggest that the MBI program holds promise as an effective intervention for enhancing behavioral regulation in children with NDDs and highlights the importance of incorporating mindfulness and interoceptive awareness in occupational therapy practice within school settings. Further research and modifications to the program are warranted to optimize its effectiveness and address potential challenges.

Widespread availability of digital tools has changed the daily lives of college students. Yet, the intricacies underlying these digital ecosystems and their relationship to psychological functioning, particularly among these younger ‘digital native’ age cohorts, are still unclear. A growing body of work points to associations between digital media behaviors and the capacity for top-down self-regulatory control over thoughts, emotions, and behavior. Behavioral scientists often subdivide this skillset into separate psychological constructs with different labels (e.g., cognitive control, executive functioning, emotion regulation), and use a varied array of tasks and surveys to index its subcomponents. The general finding from across behavioral studies is that groups (and individuals) with weaker executive functioning (EF) skills also tend to exhibit heavier and more problematic digital media habits (e.g., excessive, or addiction-like use). This is presumably because the inability to reliably exert control makes one more prone to impulsive engagement with digital media (e.g., frequent phone-checking), greater attentional distractibility in response to media-associated cues (e.g., notifications), and more difficulty with sustaining goal-relevant behaviors in the presence of digital media. However, there has also been empirical work suggesting null and even positive or nonlinear relationships between digital media use and EF. The current study aimed to address these seemingly opposing sets of findings by examining how, and to what extent, individual differences in one’s self- and mobile-reported smartphone habits relate with specific facets of higher-order cognition. In our examination of the interplay between these factors, we found consistent patterns emerge between subjective measures of everyday and problematic smartphone use and common non-social executive functioning skills. Furthermore, we also found evidence indicating an overlapping pattern of findings highlighting the relationships between one’s cognizance toward their actual mobile usage habits and specific facets of socially oriented self-regulation. / Psychology

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ESL writing teachers often deal with a heavy workload of giving feedback to students. Training students to self-assess their work can ease teachers' burdens; one self-assessment method is rubric training (RT), where teachers guide students in reading and grading sample essays. This research explores whether RT leads to positive emotional and regulatory gains. Twenty-one students enrolled in a first-year writing class received incremental exposure to RT. The same set of surveys, Self-efficacy Scale (SES) and Self-regulated Learning Perception Scale (SRLPS), was administered three times to measure the changes in their language self-efficacy (LSE) and self-regulated learning (SRL). The results were compared to the 15 students in the control group, where students also completed the same surveys on the same class days. Results showed that RT had a significant impact on students' LSE, but there was no presence of interaction or main effect for SRL. In post-assessment interviews, most students expressed feeling positive about RT because of the model essays; they learned about essay organization and coherence from the sample writing. However, some did not like the rubric because they thought it was difficult to read and the lexical complexity of the rubric was above students' reading level; it might be what made students feel less capable of completing the task. Still, LSE bridges students' self-assessment and language gains; therefore, RT should be used when teachers want to increase students' LSE.

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of problem-based learning, blended problem-based learning, and traditional lecture teaching methods on students’ academic achievement and self-regulation. Specifically, student’s motivation orientation, use of learning strategies, and critical thinking dispositions were assessed. The research design for this study was a quasi-experimental pretest/posttest design. There were 90 undergraduate education majors who participated in the study. There were 29 students who participated in the problem-based learning group, 30 students participated in the blended problem based learning group, 31 students participated in the traditional group. Convenience sampling was used for this study. The findings in this study indicated that the students who were taught via the blended problem based learning teaching methodology scored significantly higher on the comprehensive exam for academic achievement and subcategories of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire than the problem based learning and the traditional lecture group. There were no significant differences between groups for critical thinking dispositions on the California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory. Overall, the blended problem based learning teaching methodology did have a significantly positive impact on students’ academic achievement and self-regulation skills.

The present study looks at how utilizing mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII), a form of self-regulation, impacts the social networks of English language learners’ in a study abroad (SA) setting. Over 100 English language learners (ELLs) form the treatment and control groups for this study. This research compares the social network measures between students who used MCII and those who did not over the course of one 14-week semester in an intensive English program in the United States. It also examines students' perception of this self-regulation strategy. Additionally, the impact of MCII on students who are in their first semester of the program versus returning students is compared. The quantitative data show that the most meaningful differences between the control and treatment groups are in terms of social network size and intensity, with MCII students having more and closer social relationships with English speakers by the end of the semester. When comparing new and returning students who used MCII, new students show meaningful and significant gains in thesize, intensity, and density of their social networks. A survey of students’ perceptions toward MCII reveal that over 67% of participants agreed that this strategy was beneficial, which they expound on in entries to writing prompts given throughout the semester. In summary, MCII appears to be beneficial in helping ELLs in their social network development on SA, especially those who are first-semester students.

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