A Study on the Effects of Children’s Evaluation Judgments on Self-Regulated Learning in Science

<p>In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for “self-regulated learning”. This is a type of learning in which children try to actively engage in learning or take a metacognitive view of their learning and decide on the direction of their next learning path. In this study, we focus on classroom action research as a key research method for reciprocating theory and practice, and aim to plan lessons that realize “self-regulated learning” in science from the perspective of evaluative judgment (Tai et al., 2018). Therefore, the purpose of this study is (1) to devise ways for children to use evaluative judgment, focusing on the five perspectives of evaluative judgment (Fitzgerald et al., 2021), and (2) to clarify the effects of evaluative judgment on self-regulated learning in science, focusing on the effects of evaluative judgment on self-regulated learning (Panadero et al., 2019). In order to share the perspective that allows children to make evaluative judgment, we created Figure 2, which includes the following five points: “1. What I understood, what I did not understand, and how I learned”, “2. What I learned from friends and teachers”, “3. What I noticed, and what I thought about myself”, “4. What has changed in my thinking compared to before the class?”, “5. Questions, things I would like to investigate, and things to do next”. These five points informed my lesson on the “relationship between plant growth and water” in the Grade 6 practice class. Results of our subsequent analysis indicated that: (1) Patterns in Table 4 show evaluative judgment of children in elementary school science problem-solving activities, and (2) Incorporating evaluative judgment into elementary school science classes positively affects children’s self-regulated learning (Table 4); for example, understanding in the forethought stage, thinking based on experimental results in the performance stage, and prospects for subsequent learning path(s) in the self-reflection stage were all enhanced. Results of our analysis further indicated that: (3) Evaluative judgment promotes the subprocesses of forethought, performance and the self-reflection stages in the self-regulated learning cycle, as well as the relationships between the stages and the cycle as a whole.</p>