This qualitative study explored the interactions of six triads of Year One students in the United Kingdom (n = 18; mean age = 5 years, 7 months; 9 female) investigating interpersonal regulation of learning, social dynamics, and "group dialogue," evident in instances of productive collaboration during problem-solving activities. Group…

Historically, early cognitive skills have been underestimated, largely as a result of the ways these competencies have been measured, which is particularly pervasive in the area of metacognition. Only recently have researchers begun to detect evidence of contextualized metacognition in 3-5 year old preschool children through the use of…

The present study set out to investigate theoretical speculations that regulation and musical play, an initial manifestation of musicality, are directly linked. This study aimed to explore the potential for regulation to occur during musical play and investigate the nature of the regulatory behaviours. Thirty-six children, aged 6 and 8, were…

As indicated in the introductory article, this special issue has attempted to represent and illustrate developments in theoretical, methodological, and empirical work related to the role of primary classroom dialogue in supporting children's self-regulation. The articles included report studies carried out in the United Kingdom and Chile (two…

The relationship between executive functions (inhibitory control and working memory) and metacognitive skills was investigated by applying correlational and regression analyses to data collected from two groups of children. To date, research in this area has lacked a theoretical model for considering these relationships; here we propose and test…

This study is the first to explore the contribution of different types of teacher regulatory talk--directive, guiding, and autonomy supportive talk--in children's development of self-regulation across cultures. Teacher-to-student talk was analyzed under naturalistic conditions in eight Year 4 classrooms, all situated in different primary schools…

The value of self-regulation for academic achievement is well established. Thus it is paramount to understand how these abilities are developed throughout childhood and to develop research methodologies appropriate to the abilities of young children. In light of this need, we analyzed performances of primary school children in two constructional…

"Self-directed speech"--the audible or partially whispered self-talk that children engage in during their daily activities, was proposed by Vygotsky to have a mediating role in the emerging self-regulatory behaviour of young children. Studies with correlational findings tend to lend support to this hypothesis but fail to delineate the…

Children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) experience difficulty coping with everyday demands due to difficulties in performing motor tasks. Recently, a cognitive learning paradigm has been applied to studying the nature of the problems experienced by children with DCD, which assumes that these children have fewer cognitive and…

The purpose of the present research was to advance the development of knowledge regarding social aspects of self-regulated learning (SRL). The study had the objective of exploring the occurrence of self and social aspects of regulation during collaborative activities within regular primary science classes. Through a multiple case study approach, 8…

This study aimed to better understand how metacognitive skills develop in young children aged 5 to 7 years. In particular, we addressed whether developmental changes reflect quantitative or qualitative improvements, and how metacognitive skills change with age and task-specific ability. Previous research into the development of metacognitive…

This paper reports the results of a systematic literature review on empirical studies exploring relationships between parental behaviours and children's self-regulated learning (SRL). The literature search resulted in 22 studies published between 1980 and 2009. Studies were analysed in terms of their research findings and their methodological…

This study explored the extent to which parents were able to scaffold their children's Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) in the context of authentic academic tasks and attempted to identify specific dimensions within the parent-child interaction (socioemotional and instructional) that were related to children's SRL. Fifteen Chilean parents and their…

This paper reports on observational approaches developed within a UK study to the identification and assessment of metacognition and self-regulation in young children in the 3-5 year age range. It is argued that the development of observational tools, although containing methodological difficulties, allows us to make more valid assessments of…

Reports on two related studies intended to explore the interactions among children's metacognitive abilities, their working memory capacity, the development and selection of strategies, and their performance on problem-solving tasks. Explains that in study 1 children performed a reclassification task, and in study 2 children performed a…