This dissertation consists of a literature review and two empirical studies that focus on the forethought phase of self-regulated learning. The overall goal was to provide a more thorough understanding of the processes students engage in prior to initiating their academic tasks. This dissertation is composed of five chapters. Chapter One introduces the forethought and connects it importance to both persistence and retention in college. Chapter Two provides a review of theoretical perspectives and the extant empirical research on students' forethought processes. This review is primarily grounded within frameworks of self-regulated learning and identifies and explains the central processes that self-regulated learning researchers have referred to as forethought. In addition, Chapter Two includes a review of the empirical evidence of the relations between students' task engagement and achievement to both establish the importance of forethought and to identify gaps in the literature. Chapter Three presents the findings of an initial empirical study designed to identify college students' forethought. The goal of this qualitative study was to identify the major processes students engage in as they begin to initiate work on academic tasks. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 students enrolled in calculus courses. Then, a grounded theory approach was used to identify the major forethought processes students described. The emergent findings provide an overview of the forethought processes students including "identifying goals, ordering and prioritizing tasks, scheduling, storing goals and plans, and regulating goals and plans." In addition, findings suggested that students' forethought is connected to their "beliefs about math, prior experiences," and "class domain and context." Chapter Four presents a second empirical study focused on college students' forethought processes. The goal of this study was to investigate the importance of students' forethought through the lens of self-regulated learning. Using emergent data from Study 1, an instrument that measured college students' forethought was created. Then, path analysis was used to examine the relationships among students' forethought, self-efficacy, task engagement, and performance. The results from this study suggest that forethought is a positive predictor of both deep learning strategies and positive achievement emotions. In turn, positive achievement emotions predict students' performance. Together, the dissertation chapters inform frameworks of self-regulated learning by elaborating on students' forethought processes. The findings from Study 1 and Study 2 provide evidence of the existence and importance of the processes college students engage in as they begin to initiate work on academic tasks. In addition, these findings provide practical implications for college students and higher education practitioners. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]