Self-Determined Learning Theory: Construction, Verification, and Evaluation

Michael L. Wehmeyer

Martin Agran

Susan B. Palmer

James E. Martin

Dennis E. Mithaug

Although the findings in chapter 9 were consistent with the claim that improvements in opportunities and self-regulatory capacities optimize adjustments and maximize learning during independent work, they did not show how the same conditions promote discovery learning, too. In this chapter we present an instructional model to show this effect. The model presents self-regulation problems that students can solve by reducing the discrepancy between what they know and what they want to know. It contrasts the approach of chapter 9, which encouraged students with disabilities to reduce the discrepancy between what they expected to accomplish during independent work and what they actually accomplished. Both problems are similar nonetheless in that they deal with discrepancies between goal-state expectations and actual-state circumstances.

In chapter 8, students solved these problems by regulating their expectations, choices, actions, and results to reduce the discrepancy between the points expected and points produced; they succeeded to the extent that the points they produced equaled the points they expected. In this chapter, students solve a similar problem by regulating their expectations, choices, actions, and results to reduce the discrepancy between the knowledge they have and the knowledge they want to have. Hence, they also succeed to the extent that the knowledge they acquire equals the knowledge they want to acquire. In both cases the adjustments required to learn depend on the student's ability to self-regulate in order to meet their self

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