Self–regulation in writing is viewed as critically important in order to be a good writer. With the advent of cellular telephony, what passes as ‘good’ writing is being challenged with the introduction of the abbreviated form of SMS (Short Messaging Service) language. The purpose of this study was to determine the nature of the changes in SMS spelling and whether or not these changes affected the participants’ spelling age and their ability to write formally within the context of a formal SMS and the English language class. This study also aimed to determine whether a relationship exists between self–regulatory skills and writing in SMS. A sequential explanatory mixed–method research design was selected in order to address the research questions which had been posed. The study examined the nature of Short Messaging Service (SMS) language and the relationship between self–regulation and SMS, using a dominant quantitative survey design which was followed by a qualitative phase which explored and explained the phenomena which had been exposed in the quantitative phase of this study. The results of this study indicated that SMS language is an abbreviated form of digital writing, which is colloquial and informal in nature. SMS language is used in SMS text messages and within the forum of the chatroom MXit. The results also indicated that the participants in this study use the self–regulatory strategies of goal setting, strategic planning, self–recording, self–evaluation and self–reaction when writing SMS text messages that are more formal in nature. Furthermore, no evidence of SMS language could be found in an analysis of writing portfolios, indicating that SMS language does not affect the academic writing skills of the participants in this study. The main conclusion was that although this study was completed on a very small scale and that it would be inappropriate to generalise, the implementation of and research regarding the nature of SMS and self–regulation in SMS writing, require attention in order to ensure that the self–regulatory skills possessed by learners in our schools are used optimally in order to promote literacy and good writing practices. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Learning and Teaching))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Over the last century, peer-support programs have emerged as viable treatment options for individuals in recovery from problematic alcohol use (White, 2009). During this time, researchers have generated a considerable amount of evidence suggesting that peer-support programs promote widespread benefits among group members (e.g., White, 2009). Despite a growing body of research in this area, little is currently known about the processes explaining how peer-support groups help people achieve positive recovery outcomes. The current study adopts a self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000) framework to explore the means by which peer-support programs promote well-being, group satisfaction, and sustainable behaviour regulation for limiting alcohol use. Eighty-one peer-support attendees responded to a brief web-survey about self-regulation, well-being, and peer-support group experiences. These participants were recruited as part of a larger longitudinal project (entitled “Sober Together”) on peer-support for problematic alcohol use. Preliminary findings indicated that peer-support attendees who perceived group environments as need supportive were more likely to experience psychological need fulfillment, and in turn, greater well-being, group satisfaction, and autonomous regulation for limiting alcohol use. Notably, participants who perceived a congruent “spiritual-fit” with secular or spiritually-based peer-support programs also appeared more likely to experience their group as need supportive, which in turn, bolstered perceptions of psychological need fulfillment. Findings highlight the importance of structuring peer-support environments in a manner that supports psychological needs. / Graduate / 0621 / 0622 / 0451 / tcarey@uvic.ca

Self-regulation capacity allows individuals to manage their thoughts, feelings, and actions to attain personal goals (e.g., well-being and performance), as well as adjust to their changing social and physical environment (Zimmerman, 2000). Self-regulation as a positive adaptive skill and process has not been examined in relation to well-being in the context of medicine. The purpose of the current study was to examine self-regulation with 37 medical students and 25 supervising physicians to determine whether or not it may enhance well-being and performance, and reduce stress and burnout. A mixed-methods design was used to collect and analyze the data, and findings from the quantitative and qualitative phases were presented in two separate articles. Self-regulation capacity appears to be an important skill that may help both physicians and medical students to meet the demands of the medical profession and maintain an adequate level of well-being and performance in their work and daily life.

Use and effectiveness of the quiet eye (QE) technique has been a topic of interest in sport, exercise, and performance psychology. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of QE self-training on college students' internal processes associated with performing a novel task. Specifically, college students' internal processes were examined to understand how QE self-training influenced performance on a novel aiming task. College students (N = 106; M = 21.84 ± 1.79) voluntarily participated in QE self-training intervention. Participants' self-efficacy, self-regulation, and mindfulness was examined before and after QE self-training intervention over a 7-week period, with performance being measured weekly. Following intervention, interviews and follow-up survey were used to gather information about perceptions of using QE self-training instruction. Results indicated outcome performance improved from pre- to post-intervention. Additionally, participants mindfulness acting with awareness and non-judging of inner experiences was influenced by QET self-training. Findings from this study may help sport coaches and performance psychology professionals provide attentional focus training instruction to individuals with diverse levels of skills while also providing future directions for applied practice and research.

No description available.

The purpose of this cross-sectional, correlational study was to test a bio behavioral model that proposes self-regulation affects body mass index (BMI) and executive function (EF) mediates the relationship between self-regulation and BMI in a sample of female monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins age 25-64 (N=120). The model also suggests that genes influence EF. EF was measured with the TEXAS (a telephone administered measure of global EF) and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS11). Self-regulation was measured with the Goal Systems Assessment Battery (GSAB), a self-report item with nine subscales representing different aspects of Self-regulation. BMI was collected by self-report. Generalized estimating equations (GEE) were used to adjust for the dependence among the twin pairs. Results showed that Self-Regulation was not associated with BMI, nor was EF associated with BMI, although the association between the TEXAS and BMI trended toward significance (r = .17, p = .062). To examine the genetic influence on EF, a smaller sample was used, comprised only of the twin pairs (N=68, 34 pairs, 20 MZ pairs and 14 DZ pairs) and differences between MZ and DZ twins pairs were compared. The MZ (median 0.76) twins had an 18.3% lower median difference on the composite EF score than the DZ twins (median 0.93), but the Mann Whitney test was non-significant (p = .204). It is not known whether this result is due to the small sample size or reflects no difference between the MZ and DZ twins. Exploratory findings showed that four of the individual subscales of the GSAB correlated with BMI including Self Efficacy (r = -.305, p<.001), Planning/Stimulus Control (r = -.193, p<.05), Negative Affect (r = .230, p<.05), and Self-Criticism (r = .230, p<.05). Two of the individual subscales of the GSAB were associated with the BIS11: Social (r = .186, p<.05) and Negative Affect (r = .331, p<.000) and two were associated with the composite EF score. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression-Revised (CESD-R) was associated with both the composite EF score (r = .232, p<.05) and the TEXAS (r = .201, p<.05), and was associated with four of the subscales of the GSAB: Planning Stimulus Control (r = -.262, p<.01), Self Criticism (r = .488, p<.000), Positive Affect (r = -.309, p<.01) and Negative Affect (r = .496, p<.001). A linear regression model entering all nine of the Self-regulation subscales as predictors of BMI showed that the subscale Positive Affect contributed the most to the model (β= .455, p<.01), with Directive Self Efficacy (β= -2.73, p<.01) and Planning/Stimulus Control (β= -.322, p<.05) also significant. The remaining subscales were not significant. Future studies should use a larger sample size and participants known to be actively working on weight control goals.

Comment aider les étudiants à « mieux apprendre » en leur faisant découvrir leur fonctionnement mental et en les mettant en mesure de déterminer et développer leurs propres stratégies d’apprentissage ?Nous formulons l’hypothèse que la question des contenus et celle des stratégies pour se les approprier sont inséparables. Dès lors, nous nous intéressons à l’accompagnement méthodologique et, plus particulièrement, à l’autorégulation des apprentissages dans l’enseignement supérieur. Nous cherchons à savoir sans quelles conditions cet accompagnement est efficace.Nous montrons ainsi, dans cette étude, qu’il est nécessaire d’accompagner les étudiants qui arrivent dans l’enseignement supérieur pour leur permettre de tirer le meilleur parti de leur formation. Nous montrons également que l’autorégulation des apprentissages n’est pas seulement utile aux étudiants pour l’exercice de leur nouveau « métier » (Coulon, 1997), mais également, de façon indirecte, parce que sa mise en œuvre modifie le rapport au savoir et à l’enseignement des enseignants eux-mêmes. Nous effectuons notre démonstration en trois étapes. Nous étudions d’abord l’état de l’enseignement supérieur en France et mettons en évidence plusieurs phénomènes qui caractérisent sa forte évolution depuis une soixantaine d’années : la massification n’y est pas synonyme de démocratisation (Merle, 2002 ; Pinto, 2008) et le nombre d’échecs reste élevé (25 % des inscrits n’obtiennent pas leur diplôme en 4 ans). Dans une deuxième étape, nous entrons dans le domaine pédagogique en confrontant les pratiques académiques avec les connaissances apportées par la sociologie, la psychologie, les neurosciences mais aussi la recherche et les innovations en pédagogie. Pour terminer, nous analysons l’expérience que nous avons menée au sein de notre institution avec des étudiants de première année. Nous montrons ainsi qu’il est possible de faciliter l’apprentissage de la mémorisation et d’avancer concrètement vers l’autorégulation des apprentissages Nous faisons également, à partir, de notre expérience et de notre étude, quelques préconisations en direction des néobacheliers, des enseignants ainsi que des institutions de l’enseignement supérieur. / How to help students become “better learners” (learn""better) by making them discover their cerebral processing and by enabling them to determine and develop their own strategies of learning?We formulate the hypothesis that the question of the contents and that of the strategies to implement are inseparable. We are further interested in the methodological support and, more particularly, in the autoregulation of learning in Higher Education. We try to know with which conditions this support is effective.This study will therefore demonstrate that it is necessary to accompany the students who arrive in Higher Education to allow them to make the most of their training.We also show that the autoregulation of learning (apprenticeships) is not only useful for the students to equip them in their professional role (Coulon,1997), but also, in an indirect way, because its implementation modifies the relationship in the knowledge and in the teaching of the every teacher. We make our demonstration in three stages. We study at first the state of Higher Education in France and highlight several phenomena which characterize its strong evolution during the past sixty years: the significant increase in Higher Education options is not tantamount to democratization (Merle, 2002; Pinto, 2008) and the number of failures remains high (25% of the subscribers do not obtain their diploma in 4 years). Secondly, we enter the educational domain by confronting the academic practices with knowledge brought by sociology, psychology, neurosciences but also research and innovations in pedagogy. Finally, we analyze the experience which we led within our institution with first-year students. We can show that it is possible to facilitate the process of learning and to move forward concretely to the autoregulation of learning. We will finish with some recommendations in the direction of the neoholders of high school diplomas, teachers as well as the institutions of Higher Education.

The role of language has been identified as crucial in the cognitive development of young children, and has been observed on different time-scales. In particular, the real-time verbal mediation of behaviour has been studied in the context of private speech use and self-regulation, pioneered by Vygotsky and continued by others who followed this line of research. However previous studies have mainly attempted to find correlations between speech and self-regulatory behaviour, but have been unable to capture the dynamic and real-time temporal interactions between these phenomena. Hence, without being able to carry out a contextual analysis of the actual instances of temporal co-occurrence between speech and behaviour, correlational analysis is limited in determining the various kinds of verbal mediation that children spontaneously employ as strategies during problem-solving and while exercising self-regulation. The current study proposes ‘temporal pattern analysis’ as an effective method of extracting significantly recurring patterns of task-relevant speech and goal-directed behaviour, as they repeatedly occur in a stream of naturalistic behaviour which may also contain other temporally random events. These recurring temporal patterns are then contextually analysed, considering the pragmatic content of the speech involved and the goal-directedness of the behaviour towards a specific goal of the episode. Goal-directed episodes of behaviour in eight typically-developing preschool children were video-recorded during their self-initiated activities in the classroom as well as during a problem-solving task held in a laboratory setting. The proposed method of temporal and contextual analysis was used to examine the role of both private as well as social speech in the verbal mediation of self-regulatory behaviour during goal-attainment. A Contextual Model of Verbal Mediation was proposed in the study to account for the diverse functions that both social and private speech perform during verbal mediation of one’s own and others’ behaviour in a goal-directed setting, depending on the specific social and task-related context. A dynamic framework of assessment of performance was developed in the study, to account for both successful attempts at self-regulation as well as failures of self-regulation. The study also attempted to determine any consistent group differences in the styles of verbal mediation employed by the children, across the classroom and the laboratory settings.

Notre système de santé subit des pressions constantes pour réduire et rationnaliser ses dépenses. Dans un tel contexte, modifier durablement les comportements individuels constitue un enjeu de taille. Plus que jamais, l’individu est invité à devenir acteur de sa santé en s’autorégulant tout au long de sa vie. Pour autant, c’est dans un monde complexe où les univers de référence s’effritent, qu’il doit désormais être en capacité d’agir. Ces dernières années, Internet a investi le champ de la santé, modifiant le rapport au savoir médical. Le médecin n’est plus perçu comme le seul détenteur de savoir et de pouvoir. Chacun souhaite dorénavant prendre une part active dans la gestion de sa santé, brouillant ainsi les lignes de partage entre savoir profane et savoir expert.Notre travail de recherche interroge la capacité des individus à exercer un contrôle sur leur santé. Notre objectif est de comprendre comment ce pouvoir d’agir sur soi se construit au fil du temps puis se déploie au gré des évènements biographiques. Notre démarche vise donc la compréhension du phénomène de l’autorégulation de la santé, dont il s’agit de rendre intelligible le fonctionnement. De ce fait, ce sont des entretiens biographiques qui ont été menés auprès de vingt-quatre individus au mitan de leur vie. Cette enquête a permis de mettre en lumière un modèle d’analyse et de compréhension des comportements de santé et surtout de poser des hypothèses de recherche que nous avons pu éprouver sur une population plus importante dans le cadre d’une deuxième enquête quantitative portant sur 451 individus. Grâce à cette double approche méthodologique nous sommes en mesure de constater que les comportements de santé peuvent s’analyser en considérant conjointement trois facteurs que sont le rapport de l’individu au savoir, son rapport au médecin et son rapport à la fatalité. / Our healthcare system is under constant pressure to reduce spending. In such a context, more than ever, bringing about lasting change to individuals' behavior is a key issue. In this regard, all individuals are urged to become lifelong, self-regulated contributors to their own health maintenance. However, the context in which people are encouraged to take on this role is extremely complex. Internet has become part of the healthcare scene and changed the way people think about healthcare and gain access to medical knowledge. Doctors are no longer believed to be the only people who possess knowledge and power in the field. Everyone now wants to have an active hand in managing their own health, which blurs the boundaries between lay and expert knowledge. Our research explores people's ability to exercise control over their own health. Our objective is to understand how this self-determining power develops over time and is exercised in accordance with life events. Our approach thus aims to understand the self-regulation of health as an intelligible phenomenon. Biographical interviews were conducted with twenty-four middle-aged individuals. This survey not only provides a model of analysis and understanding of health-related behavior, but also puts forward hypotheses that were tested on a larger population as part of a second quantitative study involving 451 participants. Given this two-pronged methodological approach, we observe that people's healthcare-related behavior can indeed be analyzed in light of three joint factors, namely the individual's relationship to knowledge, doctors, and fatality.

abstract: Researchers have found inconsistent effects (negative or positive) of social relationships on self-control capacity. The variation of findings may depend on the aspects of social relationships. In this study, rather than examining overall social relationships and self-control, characteristics in social relationships were clearly defined, including social support, social connection and social conflict, to determine their specific effects on self-control. An online survey study was conducted, and 292 college students filled out the survey. For data analysis, path analysis was utilized to examined the direct effect and indirect effect from social relationships to self-control. Results showed social connection and social conflict may indirectly associate with self-control through stress, but social support does not. It may suggest, in traditional stress buffering model, it is the social connection in social support that really reduce the stress. Concerning the direct effects, social support and social connection were significantly associated with self-control directly, but social conflict does not. This result may support the Social Baseline Theory that positive social relationships have direct regulating effects. Results are good for guidance of experimental manipulation of social relationships in study of social influences of self-control. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Psychology 2012