Exploring self-regulated learning and off-task thoughts during video-based learning

Mind wandering is a ubiquitous cognitive experience. In the higher education context, mind wandering can negatively impact student knowledge gain when students lack a level of meta-awareness, or a conscious recognition that their attention has drifted. When paired with self-regulated learning, meta-awareness has the potential to mitigate the adverse effects of mind wandering.

Awareness of mind wandering and reactions that follow are conceptualised as components of self-regulated learning. This theoretical framing shifts the narrative associated with mind wandering from a root of disruption that must be avoided to a phenomenon that can influence and shape the learning process. However, research that examines mind wandering as a part of the learning process, rather than an experience to be avoided, has been quite limited to date. While the negative effect of mind wandering on knowledge gain has been documented through meta-analyses, these works overlook the role of learners’ agency in recognising, reacting, and adjusting their learning process following the realisation that they were mind wandering.

This thesis explores the potential relationship between a learners’ self-regulated learning abilities and their awareness of mind wandering. It is grounded in theories of self-regulated learning theory and mind wandering, which together inform how self-regulated learners might respond to moments of inattention. This relationship is examined in the context of a video-based learning environment by:

• determining whether a learner’s meta-awareness increases in anticipation of interpolated learning activities in an experiment;

• whether rewinding a video after mind wandering during video-based learning improves knowledge gain;

• whether learners in a naturalistic video-based learning case study react to mind wandering by rewinding the video; and by

• performing an individual participant data meta-analysis for the relationship between self-regulated learning aptitude and off-task thoughts across studies.

The findings reveal several key theoretical contributions: i) anticipation of interpolated learning activities does not increase meta-awareness; ii) in a naturalistic setting, substantially fewer off-task thoughts are reported compared to experimental settings; and iii) when learners have control over video playback, they report more off-task thoughts. Further contributions include the observation that rewinding following mind wandering rarely occurs in a naturalistic setting, suggesting that reactions to mind wandering may need to be explicitly taught as part of self-regulated learning skill development.

The main contribution of this thesis is the emphasis on distinguishing between the reasons learners adapt their learning process, the specific adaptations they make, and the impact of these adaptations on knowledge gain when studying task-level self-regulated learning. These adaptations represent distinct but interconnected lines of research that together provide a more comprehensive understanding of mind wandering in learning contexts, and can be applied to the study of other distractions.

This doctoral study adds theoretical and practical contributions to the field. The study provides guidance for integrative investigations of mind wandering and self-regulated learning. The thesis implications include recommendations for how to study reactive behaviour following mind wandering and whether this reactive behaviour abates the negative effect of mind wandering on learning.