Abstract

Considering the information increase rate of our age and the distance education course contents that must be carried out in today’s pandemic conditions, it is clear that the learning process of the individual cannot be limited only to the education given at school. For this reason, there is an urgent need to raise individuals who are aware of their own intellectual processes, who know their academic competencies or inadequacies, which construct and manage their own learning processes. It is a very necessary skill in the learning and teaching process to be able to distinguish what is required in a meaningful and consistent manner among the numerous information presented to him in the distance education processes, and to be able to provide time and information management. Therefore, the aim of this chapter is to evaluate the relationship between teacher candidates’ self-directed learning readiness levels and their perceptions of academic self-efficacy and awareness of metacognitive writing strategies. Learning is a self-management skill and a strategic process that also requires academic self-efficacy. Cognitive strategies are directly related to the learning activity and involve direct control and processing of learning material, while metacognitive strategies include thinking about the learning process, planning learning, monitoring comprehension or production as it occurs, and individual assessment of learning at the end of the language activity. Metacognitive awareness creates strategies for planning, controlling, and this contributes to creating a quality text. Accordingly, when awareness of metacognitive writing strategies is associated with the self-directed learning process, planning, controlling and evaluating cognitive processes will be a natural part of the process. For this reason, it is very important to determine the relationship between self-directed learning, academic self-efficacy and awareness of metacognitive writing strategies.

Keywords

Readiness for Self-Directed Learning Level, Academic Self-Efficacy, Awareness of Metacognitive Writing Strategies

Introduction

Considering the current growth speed of information and distant education content that needs to be conducted during pandemic conditions, it is evident that the learning process of an individual cannot be solely limited to school education. Therefore, there is an urgent need for training individuals who are aware of their mental processes, know their capability or incapability, and devise and manage their own learning processes. Making meaningful and consistent distinctions in countless information presented to them in distance education and managing time and information are important skills in learning and teaching process.

Self-directed learning is to take the responsibility of one’s own learning and make necessary plans to learn. It is also apparent that learners must be equipped with skills regarding the management of the learning process, based on the argument that learners should place themselves in the center of the process. That is why learners need to have a readiness at this point.

One of the essential points in providing this readiness is the academic self-efficacy perception. An individual’s judgement of their capacity to organize required activities to reach a certain achievement is also defined as “self-efficacy” (Bandura, 1997). Individuals perform, supervise, and direct actions depending upon a set of internal standards and motives; in addition, they try to reach learning objectives by employing cognitive strategies, determining what they know or not through metacognitive strategies. This way, they can find motivation toward the matter based on the belief of self-efficacy (Zimmerman, 1989). People with high self-efficacy can manage situations more efficiently because their belief about the likelihood of their success is quite strong (Schultz & Schultz, 2010).

Self-efficacy shows a more particular and field-specific structure than individuals’ more comprehensive and general perceptions of themselves (Pajares, 1996). Self-efficacy is also effective in determining the attitudes of individuals toward writing, and it ensures that the writing action is planned in the writing process; the skills necessary to perform this action and an adequate motivation level are possessed. Self-efficacy in writing means that the person is willing to continue writing despite all the difficulties experienced during writing and to strive to achieve the purpose of writing (Jalaluddin, Paramasivam, Husain, & Bakar, 2015). At this point, metacognition and metacognitive writing strategies come into play.

Metacognitive strategies are tools that individuals use to control their learning processes. Thinking about the learning process, planning learning, monitoring comprehension or production in the learning process, and self-evaluation after the language task is completed are the use of metacognitive strategies (Chamot, 2005). The main objective of these strategies is to regulate cognition, to control thinking and learning processes (Schraw & Moshman, 1995: 354). Since metacognition contributes to learning with the function of enabling individuals to better manage their cognitive skills and identify the weaknesses that can be corrected by creating new cognitive skills, it progresses by contributing to self-directed learning in a cycle. From this point of view, this chapter attempted to evaluate what these cyclical skills are and the effect of these skills on learning within the framework of the future of learning processes.

Self-Directed Learning and Readiness for Self-Directed Learning

Individuals need to have a readiness for self-directed learning to transform their learning processes into a style appropriate to their personal fields. Providing that they put their self-directed learning in action in all learning processes, a real and permanent learning process can be achieved. Individuals’ cognitive, affective, and psychomotor capability and the extent of their motivation toward the learning process play important roles in their possession of learning autonomy.

There is no consensus on a clear definition of self-directed learning, since there are many definitions of self-directed learning in the literature. Nevertheless, individuals taking responsibility for their own learning, planning for learning, realizing self-learning and making evaluation are the common points about autonomy in these definitions (Caffarella, 2000). Self-directed learning is a form of learning in which individuals assume primary responsibility for planning, implementing and evaluating their work to learn. Gibbons (2013) defines self-directed learning as any increase in knowledge, skill, success or personal development that an individual chooses and brings with his or her own efforts at any time, using any method.

Self-directed learning is an active and constructive process in which learners try to observe, manage and control the learning process after they set their goals (Pintrich, 2000). According to Holton and Swan (2011), self-directed learning includes determining learning goals and needs of individuals with their own effort and will, with or without assistance, choosing and applying strategies appropriate to the learning process, and evaluating learning outcomes. Self-directed learning, which is defined as a process in which individuals initiate, monitor and evaluate their own learning, can also be expressed as the degree of active participation of students in learning processes (Zimmerman, 2000). Aşkın Tekkol and Demirel (2018) regarded self-directed learning as learners setting their own goals from the beginning of the learning process, working in accordance with their goals by choosing the appropriate study strategy in this direction, realizing their goals by controlling and arranging the way to reach the goal, and evaluating the result.

It was suggested that self-directed learning, which occurs through the individuals’ mental conditions and the way they perceive stimuli and symbols from the environment, is the main element for the learning process at every stage of life (Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2012). Özcan (2015) defined self-directed learning as a learning style in which individuals are effective in the learning process and primarily responsible for all elements of the learning process such as planning, setting goals, finding and using resources, deciding on the learning method and evaluating how much they have learned as decision makers. In the literature, it was emphasized that this process requires individuals to control their own thinking process and that individuals must be equipped with self-management knowledge and skills in order to develop this skill. In addition, since self-directed learning is affected by factors such as the individual’s characteristics, abilities, attitudes towards learning, cognitive and affective competences (Fisher, King, & Tague, 2001), it was stated that it requires readiness.

Readiness for self-directed learning is the degree to which an individual has the tendencies, abilities and personal characteristics necessary for acquiring self-directed learning skills (Fisher, et al., 2001). In addition, for self-directed learning readiness, the individual must be competent to plan for learning in external conditions and environment by ensuring motivation (Ceylaner, 2016). Self-directed learning is an approach in which the individual takes, maintains and evaluates his or her own learning responsibility, and therefore, the individual provides readiness by changing this responsibility towards himself or herself in the learning process. Carson (2012) defined readiness for self-directed learning as the ability of an individual to cope with learning activities self-directedly by assuming their own responsibility without assistance from another party (such as family, teacher or peer).

In the most general sense, self-directed learning is the management of the individual’s own learning process (Şahin & Erden, 2009). According to Loyens, Magda, and Rikers (2008), self-directed learning includes active participation and goal-oriented behavior. It involves goal setting and task analysis, and self-assessment takes place in the learning process. Metacognitive awareness should be present in every step of instructional activities (setting goals and planning to achieve them). Individual, who are ready for self-directed learning, make it their goal to act strategically by being aware of their own thoughts in the teaching environment throughout their lives. They can direct their academic self-efficacy and internal motivation to the right goals and ask themselves what they understand and do not understand at certain points.

Societies of today need individuals who have lifelong learning skills, in other words, who can constantly renew their knowledge, keep up with change, follow developments and produce knowledge as well as being a conscious consumer of information. What is expected from educational institutions, which have undertaken the responsibility of raising individuals suitable for the human profile that society needs, is to raise individuals equipped with knowledge skills (who can access, use, transmit and produce information), can use technology and learn by themselves (learned how to learn) (Akkoyunlu & Kurbanoğlu, 2003). In this chapter, self-directed learning readiness levels, academic self-efficacy perceptions and metacognitive writing strategies were evaluated as a whole, since self-directed learning means that the learner has control over the learning activities and the responsibility of choosing both the goals and the means of learning.

Self-Efficacy and Academic Self-Efficacy Perception

According to Pintrich and Schunk (2002), self-efficacy, a derivative of efficacy concept reduced to the self, is individuals’ awareness of their skills and their beliefs in them. Self-efficacy is not an inherent quality; rather, it is a creative competence that needs organizing through an effective manifestation to channel cognitive, affective, developmental, and motivational skills to various objectives (Bandura, 2001). Self-efficacy that is about their beliefs in the competence of successfully supervising the actions and/or phenomena in their lives depends upon individuals’ cognitive competence and motivation necessary to complete a given task. Therefore, it is directly related to individuals’ readiness for self-directed learning.

Efficacy belief is the key element in organizing the behavior that leads to competence. Self-efficacy, therefore, is believing in the competence of organizing and employing the actions that are necessary to show the skill achievement for pre-determined tasks. Self-efficacy affects individuals’ goal setting, the extent of effort made to reach these goals, how long they can endure difficulties faced while reaching the goals, and their reactions in case they face failure (Akkoyunlu, Orhan & Umay, 2005). Thus, they set self-efficacy perceptions toward a specific field, topic, or lesson. The perceived self-efficacy affects the manner of individuals’ behavioral modifications.

Locke and Latham (1990) stated that self-efficacy creates an intrinsic motivation in the individual, enabling the individual to become willing, determined and confident in setting goals. Self-efficacy is also very important for the learning process, as learning itself and self-directed learning are affected by factors such as the individual’s intrinsic motivation, attitudes towards learning, cognitive and affective competencies. The reason for this is that self-efficacy determines achievement more than talent and affects students’ academic performance (Pajares & Valiante, 2006). Self-efficacy, which is an important concept in learning and teaching, is also handled as the concept of learning self-efficacy, and it can be remarked that the concept of academic self-efficacy attracts more attention especially when learning activities are considered (Ekici, 2009).

With the inclusion of the individual’s perspective on his or her own abilities in the learning process, the investigation of academic self-efficacy turned into a tool that would help create new perspectives in learning. Since self-efficacy affects the learning and motivation of students and enables them to make mental effort, it also plays a role that will increase academic success. Academic self-efficacy is the confidence of students in their own abilities regarding educational tasks and it is frequently stated that it has a positive effect on performance (Goddard, Hoy, & Woolfolk-Hoy, 2004). While students can overcome challenging tasks as their academic self-efficacy increases, they avoid difficult academic tasks by not being able to use effective learning strategies as their academic self-efficacy decreases (Margolis & McCabe, 2004).

It is known that academic self-efficacy, which helps students to see themselves more optimistically in social, emotional and academic terms, strongly affects the success of individuals (Pajares, 2003). It causes the person with low self-efficacy belief not to act on his or her own initiative or to leave a job without completion (Yılmaz, Gürçay, & Ekici, 2007), and this negatively affects his or her readiness for the self-directed learning process. Therefore, in order to create an effective learning process, individuals need to become learners who constantly control and evaluate their own thinking processes, develop new strategies and feel competent in applying these strategies. It is evident that individuals with high self-efficacy plan while solving a given problem, monitor and evaluate their own mental processes while implementing the plan, that is, they can use metacognitive strategies effectively.

Clause, Delbridge, Schmidt, Chan, and Jennings (2001) examined the relationship between individuals’ use of metacognitive strategies and their self-efficacy beliefs and concluded that participants with high self-efficacy mostly used metacognitive strategies. In the same study, the researchers modeled the relationship among self-efficacy, metacognitive strategies, and achievement and established that the relationship between self-efficacy and success was mediated by metacognitive skills in the model they obtained. Thus, studies aiming to explain the relationship between self-efficacy and success revealed that self-efficacy belief is also related to metacognitive strategies in this process.

There are important differences between possessing knowledge and skill and being able to put the knowledge and skills into practice for a specific purpose. The ability of individuals to use their knowledge and skills for their purposes is directly related to their readiness for self-directed learning and their self-efficacy beliefs. An individual with established self-efficacy can use metacognitive strategies by creating an independent learning environment in the self-directed learning process, and thus continue learning more effectively. As a result, individuals are expected to have academic self-efficacy beliefs and to employ metacognitive strategies in order to achieve success in their learning processes.

Metacognition and Awareness of Metacognitive Strategies

Metacognition in which all cognitive operations can be described as estimation, planning, monitoring, and evaluation ability is a key concept in terms of reaching the goal in the learning process. Metacognition is referred to as individuals’ awareness of the learning process, categorization of learning methods based on personal preference, choice of strategies that would ensure success in given tasks, monitoring the state of learning, and recalling the stored knowledge from the memory as needed (Drmrod, 1990). In addition, metacognition involves mental operations that are prominent in learning processes, and it can be explained as the competence to use metacognitive knowledge strategically to reach cognitive goals or as the awareness of knowing how to know.

Metacognition is the ability to actively monitor learning during learning. In order to achieve effective learning, the learner must be aware of what he/she learns, how he/she learns, and when to act strategically. With this awareness, it will be understood that learning is a cognitive process, and the quality of learning will be increased with the awareness of metacognitive learning strategies of this process. Similarly, research on metacognition revealed that metacognitive processes play an important role in the learning and memory development of the individual. Using metacognitive strategies, the individual organizes the learning process by controlling, arranging, planning and evaluating their own cognitions. It was revealed that metacognition is associated with learning and success in many areas and is an important predictor of academic performance (Callan, Marchant, Finch, & German, 2016).

Furthermore, metacognition is a process that controls the process of acquiring knowledge. This process includes attention, regular and detailed repetition, organizing and elaborating information. Metacognitive experiences are conscious cognitive or affective experiences that accompany each cognitive attempt. Metacognition is not only related to cognitive but also emotional-motivational elements. Metacognition is an individual’s thinking about thinking, and it also represents “self-regulation” and “autonomy” abilities (Klassen, & Chiu, 2010). Metacognition is one of the basic principles of active learning. It is stated in the literature that students who are aware of how metacognition works and how the individual learns are more successful than students who are not aware of these processes. This situation also manifests itself in writing skills and development.

It is acknowledged that metacognition also plays a key role in ensuring writing achievement (Graham & Harris, 2009). In the context of writing skill, it was remarked that metacognition can be used as a practical and effective mechanism in various processes thank to its virtually simultaneous monitoring and management functions. Planning the text to be formed, putting it into words, and evaluating the written texts are all instances where metacognition can be utilized (Aydın, İnnalı & Uymaz, 2017). Therefore, raising students’ awareness of metacognition and its constituents and teaching them about the metacognitive strategies that can be used under numerous circumstances are quite significant.

Metacognition is the state in which the student is primarily concerned with the suitability-appropriateness and then the effectiveness-productivity of the strategy he/she uses/will use, rather than which strategies he/she will use. Although researchers proved this important role of metacognition, it is known that many students do not think about what their thinking and learning strategies are and how they can be developed, and they are not even aware of the concept of metacognition (Hartman, 2001). However, the development of metacognition increases students’ competencies in cognitive areas and makes the individual responsible for their own learning process. In this case, it can be said that students with better metacognitive development will be more assertive and successful in the learning process.

Based on this, considering that learning is a strategic process that requires autonomy and academic self-efficacy, it typically involves direct control and presentation of the learning material. However, metacognitive strategies include thinking about the learning process, planning learning, monitoring comprehension and production as they occur, and the personal evaluation of the learning once the language activity has finished. This situation enables individuals to think over their own learning process, be active, and complete the given academic tasks more effectively.

Metacognitive awareness creates strategies for planning and supervising/controlling, and this contributes to creating a quality text. Accordingly, when awareness of metacognitive writing strategies is associated with the self-directed learning process, planning, controlling and evaluating cognitive processes will be a natural part of the process. Therefore, so as to make learning processes effective and useful, it is important to make a deduction of the awareness of individuals about self-directed learning, academic self-efficacy and metacognitive writing strategies.

Discussion, Conclusion and Suggestions

Currently, there is an urgent need to train individuals who are aware of their own thought processes, know their competence or incompetence, plan and manage their own learning processes. With the pandemic process starting with Covid-19, the world faced the necessity of using distance education, which confirms the importance of this need. In distance education processes, identifying what is necessary in a meaningful and consistent way out of all information presented to themselves and managing time and information are essential skills for pre-service teachers, as well. That is why this chapter aimed to determine the relationship between individuals’ readiness for the self-directed learning, academic self-efficacy perceptions, and awareness of metacognitive strategies.

Results of the recent research showed that self-directed learning was also related to high level thinking skills such as creativity, problem-solving, and critical thinking (Aşkın Tekkol & Demirel, 2018). Examining the studies specifically in terms of writing skills, the critical roles of self-regulation and decision-making processes in increasing writing performance were highlighted, indicating that self-regulation and self-management abilities were the fundamental abilities in the sense of writing skills. Considering that self-directed learning process is a life-long social system (Kelly & Zhang, 2015), it can be seen that this system is a cyclical order that contains inputs, processes, outputs, and feedback. This circular process supports individuals to identify learning needs and styles by taking their characteristics into consideration and to notice their cognitive abilities, providing them ways to develop them.

 In the present context, methods and techniques in which students obtain one-directional knowledge and individuals are not active in their own learning processes are the things of past. Instructional methods and techniques aim to train individuals who seek, question, and reach the information and individuals who evaluate the obtained information and produce new knowledge. For this reason, individuals need to possess an awareness of metacognition to ensure their own learning as efficiently as possible. To solve every type of problem encountered throughout their lives, individuals need to trust themselves about overcoming the problem, plan ways for a solution, be aware of their mental processes while implementing the solution and monitor their mental processes.

In conclusion, creating self-directed learning environments is possible through fostering individuals’ academic self-efficacies and their awareness of metacognitive strategies. Therefore, it is suggested that training and alternative lesson content and materials that can be offered to individuals and channels that can motivate students to do research and learn new knowledge should be included in learning processes. This way, individuals can identify their lacks in various fields owing to their autonomy, can constantly learn to overcome the lacks, and can be more proficient in their fields by improving themselves.