| Excellent scholarship. The new book should be essential reading.
“Most human behavior, being purposive, is regulated by forethought. ... People forms beliefs about what they can do, they anticipate the likely consequences of prospective actions, they set goals for themselves, and they otherwise plan courses of action that are likely to produce desired outcomes.” [p. 248]
“Neither intention nor desire alone has much effect if people lack the capability for exercising influence over their own motivation and behavior.” [p. 249]
Self-regulation has 3 principal subfunctions:
Self-observation
Judgemental process
Self-reaction.
Self-observation
“Depending on people’s values and the functional significance of different activities, they attend selectively to certain aspects of their functioning and ignore those that are of little import to them.” [p. 250] Thus how much faculty value good instructional practice, and their attitude toward computers and toward the Internet, should be part of their commitment to online approaches. Make sure this is addressed in the questionnaire/semi-structured interview.
“Preexisting cognitive structures and self-beliefs exert selective influence on which aspects of one’s functioning are given the most attention, how they are perceived, and how performance information is organized for memory representation.” [p. 250] This is related to their background with computers, and with the Internet. It is also related to their pedagogical background.
“Mood states also affect how one’s performances are self-monitored and cognitively processed.” [p. 250] This also would apply to the situation of filling in a questionnaire, or being interviewed. Thus a question or two on their mood at the time might provide some additional information.
“When people attend closely to their performances they are inclined to set themselves goals of progressive improvement, even though they have not been encouraged to do so.” [p. 251] Ask a question or two about whether they have set themselves any personal goals related to the use of technology in the last year or so.
Temporal proximity: “Self-directed change is more readily achieved by bringing consequences to bear on present behavior than on its distal effects.” [p. 251] Ask a question about whether they are, or plan to engage in some online course development in the next year.
Informativeness of performance feedback: “Self-observation enhances performance when there is clear evidence of progress, but it has little effect when there is considerable ambiguity about the effects of one’s courses of action.” Ask a question about this as well.
“... the degree and direction of change accompanying self-monitoring will partly depend on whether attention is predominantly focused on one’s successes or failures.” [p. 253] Ask a question about whether their previous efforts have been essentially positive or negative. Ask for a specific example.
Judgemental Processes
“... people do not passively absorb ready-made standards from whatever social influences happen to impinge upon them. Rather, they construct for themselves their own standards.” [p. 254] Ask if they have set any standards for use of technology in the coming year.
“More often people compare themselves to particular associates in similar situations.” [p. 254] Ask this fairly directly. Who do they compare themselves against (an expert, someone else).
“The referential performances against which people partly judge their own behavior take the form of collective comparison in social systems .” [p. 255] Ask a question about how they compare with others in their own faculty and with the university as a whole.
“Another important factor in the judgemental component of self-regulation concerns the valuation of activities. People do not care how much they do in activities that have little or no significance for them.” [p. 255] Ask a question about how much they value online instructional materials for their own courses. For courses in general.
“But they do not derive much self-satisfaction when they view their performances as heavily dependent on external aid or special situational supports.” [p. 255] Ask a question about this.
Self-reaction
Ask if the individual sets up any self-incentives (i.e. tangible self rewards) to encourage themselves to achieve a particular goal.
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